


Monsters at Our Door

by motleystitches (furius)



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Rome, Ambition, Cultural Differences, Diplomacy, F/M, M/M, Marriage, Plague, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-08
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-01-04 00:10:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1074689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furius/pseuds/motleystitches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the third century on the frontiers of Rome, Mako's life is at a tipping point. The return of the kaijus and the arrival of Raleigh will change everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Mako Mori, yes, that’s her name.

Mortuus esse . Mortuurus esse. Mori.

She will die, the lot of all mortals, man or woman.

She blinks, wakes. The bed is warm. She dresses, the layers wrap around her: fine dyed wool and a piece of old Persian silk beneath against her skin. Water droplets cling to the windowsill of her house.  Her breaths puff white in the quiet air.

Her husband is still half curled toward the empty space in their bed, hand used like a pillow, like a boy. His eyelashes flutter when she kisses his cheek.

Her sons are in the other room. Dark haired and deep-eyed they look like both of their parents and not at all, more Italian than either.  The younger is more than five years old .The two boys will grow up sturdy, strong. She checks the fires in the braziers, rouses the nurses to add more charcoal. Shuffle of feet echoes slightly in the corridors. The slaves and freedmen are already up. Passing the household shrine, the sight of the lares and penates steadies her; they have grown familiar over the years since she was her father’s daughter coming to meet the son of his father’s dearest friend.

Mako goes to her desk and makes the accounts.

Seventy-seven talents of gold coming to the mint on this frontier. Or pay for the auxiliaries, repairs for the gates, clothes, weapons…

The dies to be cast have the profile of the new emperor and an altar on the obverse- they’re news for all the citizens to the frontiers. But how many emperors, would-be emperors, in the last ten years?

Mako doesn’t write the question. She starts a letter to her father. Greeting and wishing you well-

By the time she’s finished, the morning’s full. Chuck’s sitting at breakfast feeding the younger. Their nurses are used to it and stand back, in the corners.

A client, a former soldier, is shown into the room, a privilege for his family’s loyalty. He stands, back straight, as he reports to Chuck. After he leaves, Mako sends word for the kitchen to feed him.

Chuck passes over their son to the nurse, gets up, and says,  “Be here,” as a question, not an imperative. The first time- as he’s going to get a bleeding nose tended. They were ten years old. Then, her Latin wasn’t good enough to catch the distinction between the forms and the moods: would you be here, could you remain, please remain, stay, because I command, because I ask.

“Yes,” Mako answers, who speaks to her children sometimes in Greek. Chuck smiles, kisses her cheek, and leaves.

Where else can Mako go?

She finishes her letter to her father, this time in cipher, to be delivered more quickly by government courier. Two thousand miles between them and winter will come early this year, how long until her father hears her words in Rome?

-=-=

On the long eastern frontier, the Hansens have held the Roman forts in a municipality for generations. And every generation, they’ve been asking Rome for men, for supplies, because the territory with its arable fields and fair weather is also known to the various tribes moving westward. And every year, new ills come by the sea through the trading routes. Letters to Rome have gone unheeded even through the plague when a third of the auxiliaries fell ill and died.

A new governor from Rome comes once a year. He did not leave his official residence when he heard rumors of the plague. He did not even note that only one Hansen attended his arrival.

Mako, heavily pregnant, fevered and confined to bed, could hear Chuck shouting orders through the house when he’s not hovering over her. Incense burned day and night to ward off the smell of sickness.

She survived, as well as their second-born son, but not their daughter. Chuck wept against Mako’s skin at night, when she was tired and only wished to sleep.

“I hate you,” she remembers telling her husband one morning three days afterwards. Somewhere in the house, her firstborn’s is crying loudly. The new one, she supposed, was quiet because he’s finally exhausted himself from crying since separated from his twin. “You cry louder than babies,” she said to Chuck. This is not true—Chuck’s tears are always quiet-- but Mako hadn’t slept all night. Her body was still sore, injured and wounded, far beyond falling off of a galloping horse, the rotting branch of a tree. The room reeks.

“I don’t care. You are my wife.” Chuck answered, not taking the insult. His eyes were still red-rimmed. “Aren’t you at least a little sad? We had a little girl.”

Mako slapped him.

What sort of life can she promise to a daughter? She would need to be stronger than her brothers, but she cannot even survive her own birth. How would she survive her life as a woman? A marriage? Childbirth? Even if her husband loves her so..very very much.

“I don’t want another child,” Mako said. “I want some fresh air.”

“Anything,” her husband promised her and opened the windows. In the light, her handprint on his face is visible.  

They were eighteen that year.

Now, the numbers dead along the roads all tell that that the kaijus are coming again. The ill gasp for breath, the bodies of the dead are blue upon expiration. The symptoms come more quickly this time.

And Mako’s certain from the signs of her own body. And though she’s no augur to read dreams, the news from this morning seems like a portent.

All men and woman must die, Mako. Mori.

Mako moves her hand from her abdomen, still flat, and shivers. The air is always too thick in the house in winter. For the rest of the day, Mako greets her female visitors in the atrium beside the pool. When the wind blows, she tells them to enjoy the last of the autumn sun beneath the open roof, its golden slanting rays hitting the water. It will be cold soon.

-=-=

“I’ve written to my father,” Mako tells Chuck over dinner.

“Rome will do nothing.” The auxiliaries retire at the furthest mint of the Roman Empire. The Hansens were once themselves soldiers from elsewhere. They no longer remember the place or the language that gave them their names. Chuck is born here. Chuck has never been to Rome, which Mako remembers mostly as crowds and meeting Tamsin, whom her father addresses in a quiet voice. Her house had been full of echoes.

“But he still has influence there.”

They set watches along all the main paths they know. All caravansaries, all travelers, soldier or slave or citizen is given a passport of good health in order to pass a mile’s mark outside the city.

A fountain springs from the ground where they set up the checkpoint. There’s an alter and a local god that grants good fortune in exchange for a piece of a traveler’s clothing, burned in the fire for his consumption.

It is all they have.

Chuck’s jaw turns stubborn. “We will bar the gates before anyone falls ill.”

“We will not survive winter if you do, the harvests are still coming in to the granaries. And what of the delivery to the mint?”

“They pass through the places already with the plague. The gold will not arrive.”

“It comes with a new governor from Rome.”

“He will be dead.” But Chuck hesitated.

“He will be dead,” Mako says again. Agrees.

Men can fight against neither gods nor fate, but even in Egypt, Pentecost told her, where gods walk the streets, only evil walk invisibly and leave deaths behind. 

It is not wrong to kill evil, to preserve her family, her home, and the empire that has given them to her. What is one man’s life against that? Rome can ignore the deaths of old soldiers and foreigners, but not one of its own. A report will say that kaiju killed him.

“We will not tell my father.” Chuck’s hand covers hers.

-=-=

His father returns from his hunting trip three days later.

They had word that he arrived just before breakfast. Ignoring it, Chuck still led the morning prayers.

Hansen Hercules, a centurion and later legate of Rome under the Severans, had not named his son “Chuck”.

However, at his house, a boy introduced himself to Mako as Caius Hansen. Caius Hansen’s nose was bleeding because Pentecost’s guards sometimes had long hours of idleness while Pentecost was ensconced in a meeting in Rome. They taught his new daughter to hit an opponent’s weakest point within reach whenever she feels the necessity.

Mako heard “Chuck” in the babble and repeated it every time they see each other until Chuck answered to it. He has never answered to his other name, nor does his father refer to him by any other name than the praenomen and nomen from his mother’s family.

“At least the kaijus left you with a father,” she told him once, late at night. She had woken up with his arms tight around her, the stench of death still in her nose, though it was marjoram she saw in the dim light of their room. “They killed everyone I knew.”

“My soldiers will guard you.” They were fifteen. The walls had been newly painted for the wedding. He had just received his first command. “I will keep you safe.”

She’s known soldiers since she could speak. At least, men who called themselves soldiers, former soldiers who guarded the roads they travelled, passed news of roads to avoid, unless they themselves possessed no news, having fallen prey to the same sickness.

In the town where her parents their companions had rested, sickened, and died, Mako was left alive and hungry.

Pentecost had found her. He gave her food and put her up on a baggage train. Two miles away, Mako smelled smoke, turned around and saw fire curling on the horizon.

He called her his daughter. In Rome, his wife called Mako her own as well. And because Pentecost was a commander in the Roman army adopted into the aristocratic Roman family of his wife, Mako was a citizen two years before Caracalla made everyone in Roman territories citizens and rarer still, a patrician whose name claims descent from noble Etruscan houses and whose dowry contained necklaces of pearls and drinking cups of ivory.

After the Edict of Caracalla passed, the designation of a municipality held by the Hansens became obsolete. Pentecost took Tamsin and Mako to visit his oldest friend and to establish a mint to manage the new tax revenues.

Gold flowed in. Orders to revalue the coinage followed soon after and new orders of the same followed almost every year.

Hansen Hercules has twelve thousand Roman soldiers under his command and as many auxiliaries, he is governor in all but name, the official governor Rome sends never last beyond the year granted to their predecessors.

There was perhaps once hope that Chuck would go to Rome to rise in the cursus honorum, but he had refused.

Mako just had his first son. The journey would take him away from them.

But when Caracalla was assassinated and Macrinus came to power, both Hercules and Pentecost deemed it better that Chuck stayed from Rome while the unrest in Rome plays out its course.

Hansen Hercules announces he’s heading to examine the forts the next day and will return in a fortnight.

He kisses his son’s face, who stands awkward in his embrace, then his grandsons, who give him sloppy kisses in return.

“You have kept my house well.” Herc says to Mako, smiling.

Because Rome will not.

Hercules had always known it without knowing how to change. Pentecost, now in Rome spending his days talking instead of fighting, also knows. But how many emperors had Rome had in the last ten years? Money will secure the safety of their family.

Though debased coinage was fiat for Romans, this far east, near the confluence of trading ports, gold and silver remain the actual currency.

Gold double its worth in the mint under their control. Half of it turn to coins that have the weight and the mintmarks to pass official muster.

The rest of the gold can be used to buy weapons, men- 


	2. Chapter 2

When Pentecost arrives just before winter, he brings with him Raleigh, a military tribune who has even served with Herc.

He will provide, Pentecost had sent word before him, a solution.

“What solution?” Chuck had grumbled as Mako pinned his toga in place. “We can take care of ourselves.”

“Herc doesn’t think so.”

“Herc still thinks we are twelve.”

“You are very rude to your father.”

“I wish he took up your father’s offer and gone to Rome with him. They would be both happier for it.” The last he says quietly so only Mako would hear. “Would you like to go to Rome?”

Mako didn’t answer, but let Chuck tease a strand of her hair loose from the styling before they went out.

She’s made the journey once, when Septimius Severus was still Emperor. Pentecost had followed his general from Africa to Pannoia and then to Rome, rising to Praetorian prefect, before leaving to find an old friend for a campaign he needed to end and an ambition he needed to realize.

Pentecost does not make friends lightly. Raleigh seems merely a soldier. Perhaps a good one, but already, Mako resents him for entering her corner of the world with her father’s introduction.

“Where were you, Ray-leigh” Chuck asks, catching the way Mako’s assessing their guest beside him on the dinning couch. Raleigh’s Latin’s flawless, but is the same coloring as Chuck and his name strange. Not from Rome and not on duty.

“At the  _Vallum Aelium_.”

 

“So do you advise wall and guards to save us from kaijus?” Chuck continues.

A man died last week of a fever at the shrine. His body turned blue by the accounts, but he had also been sickening for a long time.

Most sicknesses spread in winter, but kaijus always arrive from the sea in spring, when the ports open and traders move along the roads.

“I come,” Raleigh says evenly, “at the invitation of senator Pentecost to offer my services to Rome.”

“We are very far from Rome,” Chuck continues. Mako pinches his arm.

 “Raleigh served in Egypt during the pestilence that decimated the army. His legion alone was unaffected,” Pentecost says.

“For how long?” Mako asks.

Raleigh’s gaze turns to her, shrewd. “It was not chance. Before we were scattered to fill the ranks after three months. I have served throughout the empire, every disease follows similar pattern of movement through the army, only some quicker, some slower.”

“What gods do you pray to?”

“Mirthras protects soldiers-“

“So you stand alone among the dead and dying, like a good luck charm,” Chuck interrupts, “or someone accursed to bring worse fate.”

Herc coughs. “Mako is fortunate to survive the same during childhood,” he says quietly.

“Mako’s my wife,” returns Chuck.

“That is not enough.” Raleigh has eyes the color of the sea; he’s still answering her. His face is open, earnest, though his voice still has the firmness of a man used to command. “We are not gods, but there are things mortals, men and women, may do to in aid of prayers ward off sickness and deaths.”

“You alone cannot save us from the kaijus.”

“Nor do I expect him to, Hansen.” Pentecost speaks. He has not mentioned the dead governor, but Mako’s certain he wouldn’t be here otherwise. Rome is looking their way. “He’s come to help.”

Beside her, Chuck takes another drink from her winecup.

-=-=

The weather turns colder; during the day, a thin layer of frost lingers until the sun’s high. The nights grows closer to the day.

Raleigh is staying with Pentecost. His continued presence at her father’s villa and table continues to trouble her. There was nothing in Britain for him, but there’s neither political office nor riches here that could go to Raleigh while Hansens house stood. Why has he come?

Mako’s unmoored, a ship lost, as the heaviness in her body grows. Has she ever been on a ship before? She asked her father once. He said she must’ve, to know instinctively how to balance herself on a boat. They were crossing the Donaris. At a port in Greece, Mako remembered watching the sailor pray for the favors of the Anemoi and Poseidon and Stacker giving her their Roman names; a Roman must be pious.

If her father’s plans were to include Raleigh, where did that leave Chuck and even Mako? She had been adopted by one of the most ancient families in Rome as Pentecost was, but Mako’s a woman. She could neither fight with a weapon nor continue the family name no matter how many children she bears. The house Sevier will end without an heir unless it is, after all, a son’s loyalty that Pentecost requires to fulfill his plan.

Pentecost is young enough have heirs of his own, but sons needs time to grow before they can speak volubly, ride, and bear arms. And even then, not all children live up to their parents’ hopes.

Chuck didn’t. Now Mako wonders if she didn’t either. Rhetoric and mathematics do not compete against skills at soldering or the right to speak to other men of her class without being dismissed.

Mako wonders if Chuck suspects Raleigh’s role. Chuck is sometimes invited to go with Raleigh, Hercules, and her father to the baths, but he seldom goes and when he returns, he laughs at Raleigh until Mako’s annoyed and he changes topic or take his jokes to their sons.

There should be no gossip in the baths that Mako do not know- she has her own friends, clients of a sort—but she cannot guess Pentecost’s intentions if he does not tell her and she does not want to ask just to have him say, ever so gently, like the last time she asked whether she could learn to fight with a sword, “The world has intended you for another future. Chuck will be a good husband to you, we will keep you safe.”

Safety had not been on Mako’s mind. She was just engaged. It was her last chance to learn something that a girl might while a woman could not. But she had been a girl, too young to realize that even if she could fight, no glory could come to her through combat.

At least, not armed combat.

Mako smiles at Raleigh when she sees him in the library at Pentecost’s villa. “Have you found a solution to the kaijus?” she asks softly. The maps are on the table. At her approach, he looks up at her.

“Not yet. What do you think, Mako?”

“I do not think you can be of help to us. You have not seen the kaijus as they appear here. You do not know the people or the land.”

He’s taken aback, but instead of answering quickly, he pauses and traces his hand over the map, the river that connects to the shrine.

“But I want to help. I have come and pledged myself to your father who asked me if I want to die on the wall or for Rome.”

“Why have you come?”

“My brother died. The emperor prefers him in his palace than afield. And when Yancy died, I refused to return to Rome. I didn’t swear my oath to an emperor who is a monster to men.”

“Heliogabalus was a seventeen year old brat.”

“He is a god- at least, a man who had, for a while, the powers of a god, enough to grant live or death according to his whim.”  Powerful and cruel enough then, for his own guards to dispose of him.

“And you-“

“I went to the wall. Pentecost found me and promised me, what I think, he promised you.”

 “Rome is not built in a day.”

“Rome should not take a day to fall. Will you help me, Mako? You have managed a house and a city amidst these many changes.”

“I have a husband.”

“I have met noble ladies in Rome, Mako. They would’ve not come here to survive plagues, barbarians, and count gold, for a dream. I am asking for your help. There’s a shrine and a river. In Egypt and in Britain, the kaijus followed water.”

The kaijus follow the water, here, too Mako realizes. “You have my help. Come to my library tomorrow.”

-=-=

Hansen Maximianus had the misfortune to be found on the side of the Parthians during Caracalla’s campaign. He had received his change in status with such equanimity that Herc never found where he got his education or what was his real name.

He had, however, a taciturn son who refused to speak to him but would speak to their new scribe, so Max became Chuck’s tutor, then Mako’s. Chuck named his favorite hound after him when he learned that cynic means dog.

Mako comes to ask him for records of the dead.

“Are you unhappy?” Max asks Mako after Raleigh leaves them. The Cynic philosopher’s head is white where Mako remembers brown when he chased Chuck and Mako to their lessons. Herc gave him his freedom when Chuck married, but he lives in the house with them, working on making the next generations of Hansens literate and keeping their library, which is his private domain.

“I don’t know,” Mako says, sitting down.  “I’m pregnant.”

“Have you told the father?”

A slave places a platter of fruit by her hand and a flagon of yes, of course, water. Max did no believe in wine or matters he considers indulgences of the flesh. What would he say if he knew that this child is the aftermath of an indulgence?  But perhaps he already does. Chuck and Mako learned early the possibility of Max knowing everything. He always knew, for example, where they hid and what they did, no matter how secretive and clever they thought they were being.

The question surprised her so much she forgot to be angry. “Chuck doesn’t know.”

Max waves a hand. “Nevertheless. Will you tell him?”

“He wants a daughter.” He has said it and Mako knows it and still- still. She should’ve not indulged.

“What do you want?”

“Be alive, happy.” For both of her fathers plans to bear fruit.

“Are you not alive? Are you unhappy?”

“The kaijus are coming again.”

“The kaijus will always come. They’re the ire of gods, and like Aeneas, we should perhaps pray. Though I suspect the Raleigh’s not a man for the latter. I saw him when he first came. He has the look of a man disappointed by the gods. He is very unlike Chuck except for his looks, and the resemblance exists only for a stranger.”

“Why do you talk about him?”

“Because you don’t want to talk about the possibility of a child, not even to your husband.”

“I didn’t want another child.”

“But now there is one and Raleigh has the look of one who will ward off bad omens and bad dreams. Mako,” he says gently, “one person is not another. Sometimes, we are not even ourselves as time pass.”

“What do you really think?”

Max smiles. “I think, Mako, you come here because I am no one and you must talk to someone. Neither you nor Chuck has ever listened to my advice despite my pains, so the most I can do is so you know your own better so live with fewer regrets once you decide. “

“Also, You are angry with Chuck. You are not at Raleigh. ” He taps his hand against the papers. “You are helping him and you smile as if Pentecost had just promise your lessons in spear throwing.”

-=-=

Chuck protests when Pentecost announces that Mako will accompany to Raleigh to the source of the river.  “What if there’s a storm? What if you meet bandits? Why can’t you wait until I come back?”

“Because it’s going to be snowing soon and you need to go fight off bandits.”

He still grumbles, but Pentecost and Herc found the suggestion sound and Mako’s suggestion reasonable. He is relenting and leaving Max, the dog, behind with her.

“Will you be here when I come back?” he asks. “No matter what your father thinks.”

He looks young, suddenly. Less angry, perhaps, than the boy Mako met, but no less uncertain. A boy growing up with slaves, he was as alone as Mako had been- even lonelier, perhaps, because he distrusted his father. And even when Mako came of age, Chuck was never certain of what Herc thought about the way Chuck looks at Mako or what Pentecost thought; Chuck was young as she was- some fathers prefer older, more established husbands for their daughters.

“You know me,” Mako answers, and kisses him.

On the day, she travels by litter to meet Raleigh early in the morning. His gaze sweeps her from head to toe.

“It’s up the mountain,” she says, resisting the urge to blush. “My slaves have other duties.”

Chuck would disagree, but reports of raids of the homesteads had sent him and Herc to the border. Pentecost went with them.

“You look good,” Raleigh says, smiling.”

Under her cloak, the tunic and the trousers she wears beneath makes it easier to ride astride. “All I need is a sword,” she says.

“I am at your command.”

Mako slants him a look, wondering at his daring. The sky’s still too dark to see Raleigh’s expression.  But she knows soldiers. Chuck has worse sense of humor. “Fine.”

Raleigh bows from his horse and follows out her into the woodcutters’ trails.

That path is one Mako discovered herself. The dreams of steel, rain, and giant monsters when she was still growing familiar to her new family had led her to seek temples where she may find their images.

“Is there no Latin name for the god of the shrine?”

“Maybe a few generations after you would find Jaegar worshipped as Phoebus or Vejovis, but not yet. He is himself still.”

“Healing and revenge seems always contradictory for me. All gods associated death are also associated with death, or curses.”

Just like a child or a man who survive the plague alone of all their peers is either blessed or accursed.

“Gods are contradictory.”

“Just as men are. Or women, Lady Mako, since we made them. Who is your favorite?”

“I believe-“ Mako falters. There are Greek gods, Egyptian gods, Roman gods, as many different pantheons as there are peoples. An emperor may be a god. Perhaps she has different gods before she learned to speak Latin, but her protectors have been flesh and blood. “In the gods that keep my house standing. What of you? Have you ever been pious?”

Raleigh shrugs. “When I was in the army. Other people’s gods were of no help to them.”

And then his brother died at the hand of one. Perhaps it would not be so bad to have a friend or a brother in Raleigh. The practicality is refreshing.

In Rome, piety had been everything. It was in the rituals and the language.. In the frontier, sometimes even Chuck cuts family prayers short, but he performs them because it’s expected.

The river is long and winding. It would’ve taken them two days to follow it to its source. The path Mako takes him is off the trails- steeper and more forested—and also quicker. They hear the water before noon, then a loud rustling, too near them.

Raleigh’s horse jerks, stamping its feet. Mako’s horse rears as a large dark shape darts out from between the bushes. Raleigh shouts as Mako’s launched in the air. She twists, tucks, and lands, feeling the impact of the landing through her body.

She turns and sees a single boar, massive and bristling. Her horse is walking around in circle in front of her, but the boar rushes forward again and again, its yellow tusks aiming for the soft underbelly. A few leathers have snapped, the ends trailing the ground, blood dripping down. The boar changes direction as Raleigh just as he leapt down from his horse, sword drawn. A sword is no weapon to fight a boar. The  small animal eyes are red, mad, as he charges forward.  Mako throws her cloak, the distraction drawing its attention.

Then she runs. Mako unsheathes the dagger from her belt. She won’t be fast enough after the boar breaks through where her horse is trying to keep it away, but a little distance should be enough.

Just as she hits the trees, she hears a whistling, then a crash. She keeps running.

“Mako, stop.” Raleigh sounds faraway.

She turns. The boar’s lying there, panting, a sword sticking out from its back. Raleigh’s running toward them as the animal’s eyes focus. It heaves itself to its feet and heads toward Mako again.

Mako tries to run, stumbles against a root, almost falling. She whirls around, hears the rip of fabric, then feels the warm blood on her hands. She’s slit the animal’s throat.

“Are you all right?” Raleigh drags the carcass off its feet. Draws his sword before stabbing it through the head. He eyes the blood on her hand.

Mako nods.

“Thank you.” Raleigh looks as if he’s about to say something else, but he only offers his hand to boost her up his horse. Her own is gone, spooked, and perhaps already halfway down the mountain.

“There’s an opening to a cave nearby,” she says. She would’ve never have made it.

“Now you are blooded,” Raleigh says. “The first time is always difficult.”

“What?”

He grins. “Getting the blood off without ruining your clothes.”

“What make you think this is my first time?” Mako asks, wiping her blade and tucking it in her belt. “I’ve hunted.” Until it’s no longer seemly for her to do so and even Chuck seems reluctant to accompany her claiming it’s too dangerous.

“You’ll have to take the reins, since you know the way.” Then he gets up behind her, his chest against her back, his legs bracketing hers. “We best get out of here before anything else comes through.”

Without her cloak, the air is cool, but he is warm and his body firm. Chuck would never ride with her this way- at least, not on a horse. Mako feels her face heat and digs in her heels. Raleigh’s hands wraps around her waist. She can feel his heartbeat, quick enough to be in synch with her own.

They arrive at the shrine a little later. The stones are overgrown with moth. The waterfalls have slowed to a trickle. But there’s one pool of warm water, mist rising above it.

“Our very own hotpool. It would’ve been more popular if this place is easier to reach.”

Mako dismounts. She lowers hands in the water, turning it reddish for a moment. The hot water stings.

 “You are hurt,” Raleigh says.

Mako followed his gaze and there’s indeed a rivulet of blood running down her arm. She remembers, vaguely, the press of the hard surface of the boar’s tusk against her arm. It’s not deep, perhaps even from a branch or a root. “A graze.”

“May I?” Raleigh asks. As she nods, he rips off a bit of fabric and gestures for Mako to sit.

He’s frowning a little as he wipes away the blood and ties the makeshift bandage on her arm. His eyes are well-lashed, blue as the waters, quite beautiful. Mako turns her head away and says, “When I was young, one bad harvest year, I heard of trappers coming up here, even in winter. The warmth attracts the birds, and their predators.”

Raleigh finishes then stands from where he’s kneeling next to her.

“These are not native birds.” Raleigh makes his way up the steps, scattering are few of the birds, squawking as he shoves the past. “There are no nests.”

Mako looks up in the gray sky. “Kaijus come from the sea.” She looks at the birds again, stumbling on the ground. “These are sea birds.”

“And they’ve use of the river’s source. How many people drink from that river?”

-=-=

Chuck returns on the ides. He’s thinner, but they won, so he’s even gracious enough to let his father enter the house first.

At night, Mako sees the long narrow scratch down his back.

“Maximianus dressed it earlier.” He says, as she prods the flesh around it. It’s not swollen, but the scab is still soft. Mako hmmphs and goes to take out the bandages.

“Don’t go to the baths like this.”

“I won’t.” Chuck sits still as she bandages the wound across his shoulder blade, but once she comes back after putting the box away, he reaches out a hand and pulls her toward him.  He tilts his head up. “I miss you.“

“You’ve been away longer.” Just three months ago, Chuck was away for half the year, leaving Mako with two children and no way to go riding with her head uncovered. It’s not his fault. He swore an oath to Rome.

When he returned-

“We found guards at the watering hole,” Chuck says. “Your orders.”

“Three out of five travelers entering the town uses some tributary of the river to water their horses. We found seabirds nesting there, at the hot spring, polluting the water.“

“We-“ Chuck’s voice lowers.

“I thought Raleigh’s precaution sound.”

Chuck looks away. “Mako. Even if Pentecost orders you to-“

“Did he?” Mako asks sharply. Her father would not. He should not. He would ask, put everything plainly, logically, and ask Mako what she thought was the reasonable course and what course she preferred. Three weeks before her engagement, he had presented her with maps showing the furthest edges of the empire and even lands she had never heard of.

“I don’t know what life would’ve been for you outside Rome,” he had said.  It was everything he could gather of her family and origins. Parthian traders had supplied most of it. He would hire a ship and guards to accompany her if she wanted to leave Rome behind her.

But Mako would’ve been dead if there’s been no Pentecost, no Sevier, no Rome. She would’ve been unhappy traveling without a single friend though it would’ve been the adventure of any hero.

“He didn’t ask, but I don’t care if he or my father wants you to divorce me.” Chuck looks at her again, almost angry. “I will never love another.  You know I haven’t.“

A marriage does not ask for love or even understanding, but can any wife ask her husband not to share himself with others? Chuck is a soldier without whores or bastards, a master who does not take pleasure on his slaves or freedwomen even when his wife refuses to give him a child.

Just a little while ago, comforting Chuck felt a lot like comforting herself. He is always the Chuck who secretly read Ovid’s Ars Amatoria with Mako and who rode out to his first war, at sixteen, imagining himself Alexander the Great.

Easy then, to say, “You are my husband,” and kiss him: his familiar face, his familiar mouth. She knows all the shapes and motions of him like he knows hers. It’s comfortable to lie against him, with him.

He’s hard between her thighs and he’s pale enough that his blush extends all the way from his face to his chest. The scars are his arms are smooth, not the ridges on Pentecost or Raleigh’s that marked them to have survived a certain manifestation of kaijus. The swords calluses on their hands are similar, rough whiles hers are smooth except for the little bump on her index finger from the stylus.

Mako concentrates on the body beneath her.

When Chuck came back three months ago, it was summer. And without taking off his soldier’s cloak or letting Mako change her clothes, they rode all the way to the foot of the mountain with only three slaves to accompany them.

“I want to stay here,” Chuck had, the sun making his hair gold, his skin tawny. Bits of grass had tangled in his short hair. His hands were restless on her heated flesh.  “Will you?”

Mako missed him. Missed everything. He was as young and as lovely as they always were. His gaze and his words flowed through her. They were the same, wanting the same. 

In the darkness of their bedroom, Chuck lets out a gasp as he finishes between the slick heat of her legs. He breathes against her, hand stroking down her side. His mouth is unbearably tender as he moves down her stomach and lower still. Excitement tightens through Mako’s body. She’s a bow, drawn by the tip of his tongue, the delicious suction of his mouth. The world is all stars for an instant.

She finds her body with his arms wrapped around her. The fires in the room have dimmed to ember, glowing faintly through the corrugated edge of the braziers. “We are alone,” Chuck says sleepily, “so perfectly happy.” He leans forward to draw up the blanket, his elbow rattling noisily the desk beside the bed.

Through the windows, Mako can see the shadow of the first snow falling.

-=-=

The mountains are sealed for the winter. Raleigh shares a flagon of water with her in her father’s library.

Mako isn’t expecting him to make the appointment. Raleigh’s just come from the bath, his neck still shining with oil. He must’ve hurried; his tunic is still damp, sticking to his body. She’s excused herself from the dinner company outside, complaining of a headache.

They’re counting the dead. Not so many as other seasons and the pattern is becoming clear. They work quietly for two hours before Pentecost and Herc arrives.

They listen to the report and exchange a quick glance with each other.

“Whatever you wish done, “ Pentecost says, addressing both Raleigh and Mako.

Beside him, Herc nods. A messenger has carried news that the defeated stragglers are importing cult objects and making initiates into a mystery they claim will ward off the kaijus when they come.

Mako frowns. “Kaijus won’t be here until spring. They won’t come this year.”

“They also claim to be able to curse enemies with kaiju,” Herc says. “But it’s delaying tactic; they’re waiting for reinforcements. “ He looks apologetic at Mako. “We’ll be riding out again in two weeks.”

“Mako and I will ensure that there will be no need to join this new cult,” Raleigh says.

“Very well,” Pentecost says, looking steadily at him. “I’m giving you command of the defense.”

After they both left, Raleigh turns to Mako and says, “You realize he’s giving us both the responsibility.”

She leans forward slightly. If she tilts her head, from a certain angle, Raleigh does not look very different from Chuck. They’re of similar size and shape, but Raleigh’s not the boy with whom she fumbled her first kiss.

Raleigh does not, however, kiss her, or pull her hair too hastily. It’s not the stuff of plays or of Ovid’s love poetry. He leans his forehead against hers and says under his breath,  “I shouldn’t.”

“You went to the wall because you did not do what you should do,” Mako says. “Keep to your oath, obey the emperor.”

“I’m not.” Raleigh looks troubled. “I don’t. It’s not as if I haven’t.”

Mako laughs a little. When she was young, she thought that if she were a man, she would get whoever she wanted. It’s fortunate you are a woman, Chuck had said. But in Rome, even respected matrons did similar: slaves, gladiators, poets, even their daughters’ husbands, Not on the frontiers, when poets are sparse and gossip and rumor travels within Latin speaking people like the wind.

“We may have to change Chuck’s plans.” Mako pulls away. Chuck has a preference to travel by the river, which forms a natural defense and allows him to outflank the enemy because he knows the geography.

At dinner, Raleigh broaches the topic because it is the proper thing to do. It’s already late. Most of the dinnerguests have already left. Only the family remains. Mako pretends not to see Pentecost and Herc getting up together.

“I should’ve known about it first,” Chuck says.

“Mako thought of it.”

“Mako’s my wife. She should’ve told me herself.”

Annoyed, Mako continues her conversation. As lady of the house, she gets up to bid her final guest goodbye. Then she hears her name again and can no longer ignore the conversation. She reenters the room to find them both standing.

“Mako can exist beyond you.”

“What?” Eyes ablaze, Chuck whirls on Raleigh, who steps in front of her, fists raised.

Mako tries to shove him away, but it’s too late. Chuck’s gone pale, betrayal so sharp it cuts her.

“You’re a disgrace,” Chuck shouts. “Both of you. Why don’t you just take your…lover..and go.”

Everyone must be listening. The walls have ears. Mako curls her hands into fists, then looks at him steadily. “I gave you two sons. I’ve been with child since summer.”

Chuck blanches. “I’m-“

He’s not sorry. Mako spares him the lie of an apology. She’s angry in a way she doesn’t think possible: at him, at herself. They were perfectly happy. They are no longer fifteen. There are other people in the world. There always have been.

She takes Raleigh’s hand and turns. The torches are lit through the gardens.  He is uncharacteristically silent riding beside her litter. They return to her house.  

 


	3. Chapter 3

Max, the dog, trots happily up to Mako then sniffs around Raleigh’s feet before looking up at Mako, whimpering a little.

Mako bends down and scratches his neck while ordering a guestroom to be prepared. Max is the only hunting dog Chuck allows in the house. He’s the pup of the first Max, who never ends up finding a mate like him. Consequently, his offspring is his likeness except for the slightly lankier body. 

“You’ve never come home alone,” Raleigh observes, surprising her.

Some men, she knows, linger after a banquet for the company of men and women not their wives. And in Rome, love can be games: how to hide a note, how to conceal a tryst, or an affair.

She takes his arm. It’s cold in the loggia; the hallways are warmer though darker; the firelight throwing strange shapes on the walls. “There’s never been anyone else for us,” she says, leading him in the direction of the family quarters. “But this is our home.”

“I didn’t think-“ Raleigh begins his sentence again, troubled. “Then why am I here?”

“I want you here.”

He steps through the threshold then waits as Mako goes to the drawer beside the bed. Within, there’s a carving of a boar’s tusk. Raleigh has given one to her. She takes it out, then glances across the high bed, at Raleigh, unarmed, utterly trusting in the doorway of her bedroom, as if he’s certain that Chuck’s not going to strike him where he stands because Mako has offered him hospitality.

The faith is exciting in a way Mako remembers when she first set her horse to a gallop. “And because you are not Chuck’s enemy.”

“Who’s Chuck?”

At first, the question confuses her, and then it makes her wistful. “I met my husband when we were both children. I grew up with him. I married him.” Raleigh nods, listening, so Mako continues. “Caracalla’s Parthian campaign began three months after the marriage. They all left. When Chuck came back, he told me the smell of the campfires at night, he told me the rout of enemy, every single detail until I could see it in my own head, but for the first time in our lives, I realized something he had something I could never have. “ 

The memory still burns with every summons to battle. She trails off, frustrated at the inarticulate desire, and worse still, not quite sure if Raleigh would understand how strange that instead of fading with time, it has grown so intense that she sometimes wonders she’s been displaced from another time and place to live not in Etruria where women sit in symposia or a place conjured by philosophy, but at the frontiers of Rome struggling within an inchoate dream. Worse still, she wonders perhaps her mind was in the wrong body altogether.

She begins again. “Perhaps it would’ve been different if we were poor. The life of a farmer’s wife and a farmer is not different, but for us-“ 

“I understand,” Raleigh has come closer until he almost touches the bedstead. “When my brother died, I thought that if it had been a different life, the loss wouldn’t be as great. Death comes to all. But we thought to serve Rome, fight her enemies, defend her emperor. We can sleep at night because we fulfill our oaths. And yet, the life we thought we could lead was very different from the one we were allowed.”

“Do you?” Mako asks. “You are a Praetorian. You are a still a soldier even if you no longer go to war. You will have time to heal,” she says. “I’m pregnant, Spartan mothers are given honorable burials if they died in childbirth, but we are Romans.”

“You have two sons-“

Mako shakes her head. “I almost died on my last. The midwives thinks it unlikely I will survive another, especially if the kaijus comes again.”

“Mako,“ Mako remembers this, the expression on his face, the careful earnest gaze, waiting for her answer across a dinntertable, a stack of scrolls. “Do you want me to stay?” he asks. Shadows play along Raleigh’s face, the gleam of his hair, the quiet in his eyes, the curve of his mouth.

“Yes,” Mako whispers. And he’s still there, waiting, so she lowers her head and kisses him. 

His mouth is very soft beneath hers, but there’s a wave of heat that rolls down her back at the first touch of his tongue. When they parted for breath, his cheeks are flushed.

“Come.” And Raleigh takes the step up to the bed. 

-=-=

 

She wakes, at first, confused, because the room is still dark, but there’s a noise and she feels Raleigh’s go very still behind her. She turns. Chuck’s standing there, backlit by the moonlight through the windows, an imposing figure, waiting. 

As she shifts, he unbuckles his belt, bends to take off his shoes, and strips his clothes, until he’s naked beside them.

“I was looking for you. It’s cold,” he says. And he does shiver a little. They had shut the door. The fires have died.

Blinking, Mako pushes the blanket. Chuck climbs in beside her.

“I’m fucking Raleigh,” he says, matter-of-in-fact.

Mako tries to untangle her thoughts. “What?” 

“My house, my bed,” Chuck’s answers. “He’s certainly not going to fuck me-“

“He’s not interested.”

“I’m not,” Raleigh agrees. The mattress dips as he moves. “Unless you want me to.” 

There’s a part of her that wants to laugh at the hiss of indignation in Chuck’s breath. Chuck, who’ll gleefully agree to trying anything in Elephantis with her but blushes three days afterwards across the breakfast table whenever she has him facedown on the bed at night. 

But Mako’s already annoyed by this exchange. There are swords in the bedroom. 

“Something fair then,” she says, directing her words into the dark. “A kiss.”

“Fine.” The answer surprises her. One knee planted on the bed, Chuck leans over her carefully. Raleigh shifts behind her and makes a sound. The gasp is Chuck’s, however. She pushes him back after a while, aware of the heat coiling in her and the reluctance to let the kiss go on.

If fucking is suppose to denote ownership or some sort of mastery. They’ve never had anyone but each other. Chuck’s hers as surely as she is her own. “Go to sleep.”

Raleigh kisses her shoulder and is asleep after a moment.

Mako’s half-gone herself when Chuck turns on his side to face her. “I can’t believe you let him in the bed. I went looking for you all over.”

The bed, though large, is not made for three. Mako rests her hand where his arm is in goosebumps.

“I’m sorry,” he continues, taking her other hand, rubbing over the callus on her middle finger from the stylus. 

“Let’s not talk about it.”

Chuck doesn’t come back to bed every night. Mako finds him sleeping in the room with the boys one morning and the library another.

Raleigh still only enters the bedroom at her request. The slaves must know that he’s never slept in the room prepared for him, but Raleigh shares Mako’s bed with the permission of her husband who joins them there. He joins them, therefore it is an indulgence, a satisfaction of the craving of mind and body, but not a necessary one.

“You don’t sleep well at night knowing he’s somewhere else in the house,” Raleigh says one evening. 

Chuck still turns to face her when they go to sleep and she still finds the sight of his sleeping face reassuring. 

Raleigh says, “I can go. He’s leaving soon.”

But she’s at her desk in the morning when Chuck finds her. She’s seldom seen Chuck when the sun’s barely peeking behind the horizon. He’s pale. There’s a fold in his toga that’s not laid with his usual neatness.

“Will you be here when I come back?”

“I’ve an entire household to run.”

Chuck bites his lower lip. He’s cross, but when he looks up again, his eyes are red-rimmed. “Mako, would you stay if it’s only me? What if there’s no children, no villa, no Pentecost, no Herc, no bloody dream of their own private empire? If Raleigh asks you to ride away with him to Britain or Rome, would you stay because I’m here?”

“I’m not choosing between you and Raleigh,” Mako says flatly.

There is never a choice between the man she grew up with and the man who knows her more than she knows herself. Another world, perhaps: no Rome, no villa, no children, and duties and obligations of another kind

“You are, but I don’t care. Soldier or poet, lovers love, righ?. And you never liked poetry. Herc’s taking almost the whole legion with him tomorrow. There’s an army amassing near the border. I know you’re angry. Half the fault is mine, but I want you to live. Nothing is more important than that.” 

Self-conscious, Mako’s touches her abdomen. “I’ll be here when you come back.”

“I’ll come back and it’ll be just for you.” 

This time, when Chuck rides out, he doesn’t ask whether Mako will stay. He kisses her. She kisses him back, touches the gleaming leather of hauberk. 

They have made promises, sworn oaths, both public and private. They have bound their lives together by inclination and design- too many years have passed to untangle the threads. Raleigh isn’t going to change anything. Not this. Not yet.

Mako waits in the house while her husband and fathers go to war. 

-=-=

Mako wakes. Raleigh’s arm’s slung across her pillow. He’s still asleep. Mako gets up, dresses: silk against her skin, layers of thick fine-weaved wool to keep her warm. She tastes salt at the corner of her mouth. The water in the washbasin’s tepid; she washes her face. The memory of seawater lingers as she watches horizon breaks with the dawn. Raleigh’s going to be awake in a moment.

The Hansens and Pentecost rode out with most of the legion and the auxiliary troops, leaving three cohorts under Raleigh.  
Four days after the army marched beyond the ramparts, Mako and Raleigh receives report from the spies of the appearance of an entire encampment coming down from the mountains, seemingly from nowhere. The cooking fires of three thousand quadrupled the number overnight. 

It is unusual for the tribes to amass so near the winter. Importing a god speaks of the determination for a settlement. For invasion.

They are working against a strategist, a plan of a scale they hadn’t expected. Mako and Raleigh keep the suspicion to themselves. 

A long gray cloud looms on the horizon in the direction they were marching. The first blizzard hits the mountains. Reports of new cases of kaiju come in. Raleigh and Mako decides to shut the city gates despite fears that the report may have arrived too late. 

Messages travel slowly across the roads in winter. 

Mako’s sitting for the noon meal when Maximianus rushes in, panting. 

“Three,” he says, waving away the wine and collapses on the couch. “They’ve split us in three.”

Mako bids water to be bought and settles him down, ignoring how fast her heart is beating. 

“Shepherds.” He’s pants. “They were looking for specimens I asked for, found the aftermath of fighting instead. Sent the news to me.” 

So there’s been no news. Three days. Four. A constant stream of communication ensures the army’s fed and watered, but the snow has blocked the roads. What can have happened in three days?

“Hansen and Pentecost are in the west, near the pass. The shepherds saw the banners of Chuck’s cohorts fall.”

Chuck always marches in the vanguard; he knows the geography and his men would fight; they would’ve known the enemies have grown in size, but perhaps there were even more than they imagined to outflank a Roman vanguard in strange territory in bad weather. People are often lost in those mountains. 

“And Chuck?” 

“I don’t know.”

“If he’s alive. They would’ve sent for ransom. He has that ridiculous armor.” Stamped with gold and silver; Chuck’s always wished himself Achilles and Alexander- the finest armor for the fiercest warrior. He’s never failed to come back. Mako paces the length of the room, stopping in front of the lares. Her eyes sting. Something heavy lies on her chest. She chokes on her breath. He’s always come back. “If he’s dead,” she says, “we would know. They would flaunt their victory.”

Except they’re working with a strategist, or several, for the Hansen fail so spectacularly at the defense their own borders. They may wish to leave the Romans uncertain.

“Mako-“ Finally, she notices that Maximianus has been calling her name. “Tell Raleigh,” he urges. “We must secure the ramparts and pray that your father and Herc find easier enemies than Chuck did.”

“Pray?” Mako asks aloud. She’s hearth and home an enemy can lay siege to. She has home and family to defend. 

Easier to ride away with Raleigh in a different world: no empire, no Rome, no family.  
The stone faces of the gods are immobile, the stone the same as when she first saw them: fixed forever as long as the house stands. Every dream is insubstantial. All men will die.

Mako curls her hands into fists. She tastes salt again, but there are no monsters rising from the deep and she does not command metal ones of her own. 

All men will die. Times and worlds are shadow. The soul’s the same. 

“I must know,” she says. 

“Know what?” Maximianus asks her.

She needs to know whether Chuck’s alive. She needs to know her father’s fate. She needs to secure their safety. And, she needs to know if she turns her head, Raleigh’s going to look at her with a smile and know her thoughts. 

Raleigh’s already in the courtyard when Mako goes to find him. 

And because this is real, not a dream, where their minds are one, he shares his thoughts aloud and asks her, “What should we do?” Mako lets out a breath she doesn't know she's holding. 

Let us do this together. 


	4. Chapter 4

Mako draws up and settles the thick blanket more firmly around Lady Danger, who snorts slightly. She’s the eldest in the stable, no longer fast, but suited to Mako’s purpose.

“Don’t let him come back.”

Raleigh looks dubiously at the hound at his feet and nods. Max paces restlessly, nosing at the ground and glancing anxiously back at Mako.

“We need certainty.” Mako reminds Raleigh again, just loud enough so that the wind doesn’t carry away her words. “So you will save the commander of the army first, then you will come for me.”

Raleigh smiles as Mako rests her gloved hand over his on the reins. “He’ll insist on saving you.”

“And you’ll insist that I do not need saving, only his seal.” Mako takes the necklace from around her neck and closes Raleigh’s fingers over the warm gold. The pearled ring hanging from it belonged to Tamsin. Chuck would recognize it. It was Tamsin’s first gift to Mako after giving her her name. “Give this ring to him so that he knows it’s only a loan.” 

“If they capture you-“

“Only then I would need saving, with an army at your back. Or else I expect you to avenge my ghost.”

Carried by the growing wind, snow eddies in the air around them, stinging her face. Raleigh’s eyelashes are tipped in white. “I wish it does not have to be you.”

But no, it must be her; it cannot be legate or a praetorian who present terms to Rome’s enemies with no certain outcomes. 

“You are with me,” Mako murmurs. Raleigh leans his head against hers for a moment, his breath warm on her face before it’s gone.

The scouts’ report agrees with what she expected: though they are still unsure of the number of the enemies, there are too many wagon trails for the invasion to be entirely warlike. 

Mako has on the red of the soldier’s cloak. Beneath, fur keeps out the cold. The white horse whose height gave its namesake marches her behind two soldiers with raised banners. The light of the noon sun strikes against the glass tipping the white banner, scattering rainbows onto the snow.

Before they were in sight of the gates, a group of horsemen rode out and surrounded them, spears raised. Its leader’s armor blood-red. Lady Danger kept calm beneath Mako though she startled at the sight of the face beneath the helmet. When he spoke, his mouth didn’t move. A closer look Mako sees that his face is a mask, as if he is an actor, the expression created for a scene. She cannot tell whether he is meant to be god or man, only that he is meant to frighten. 

Mako doesn’t understand his words. The horsemen circles around them. The leader turns his horse. They’ve no choice but to follow their escorts. The makeshift gate opens before them. 

The sentries seem used to the cold: they wore thick furs even around their legs. Fires lit alongside a well-trafficked trail thrugh the encampment.

Curious onlookers emerge from tents. As well as men with arms, women and even children stood and gawked at her. Not all the women were young and not all their faces similar in shape or coloring. It means Raleigh can sneak into the camp and move among them more easily undetected, but what it means for her corner of Rome-

They are an entire people, or perhaps peoples joined under a single banner for the same purpose. As a girl, Mako and Chuck has played out the histories of Rome with Max and the chickens and goats in the yard. She shivers, then draws herself taller. 

Their guide stops and dismounts within a short distance of a large tent, almost the size of a house, but like many she has seen, its walls round instead of square.

The man in red approaches and lifts his mask beneath his helmet. The face is handsome, the man perhaps no older than her, his features something out of childhood memory, before Rome. He stands beside Mako and extends a hand. Mako leans forward. With a single whispered command, Lady Danger kneels. The man lifts an eyebrow at her and smirks. Ignoring it, Mako takes the hand and steps down. Snow crunches beneath her boots. 

The guards nod and lift the flaps to the large tent. She enters alone. 

At first, she sees only the fire lit in a large stove of bass in the center. 

As her eyes became used to the dimness, she sees that the space is occupied by furs and carpets piled on the ground and ahead of them, a large raised platform upon which sit a man and a woman, her hair bleached to light yellow like a Gaul. 

The man’s face resembled the man in the armor, but surely he is behind her. Mako blinks and the man seems to multiply. She blinks again and there are three, her guide brushing snow off of his armor.

The woman on the platform laughs. She says something and a louder and deeper sound echoes. Mako startles again- a giant sits on the platform behind her, his bulk concealed in the shadow so that Mako had thought he is part of the pillar. 

“I am Wei Tang Hu,” the one sitting across from the woman says in Latin. “Wei Tang Jin-“he indicates her guide— “and Wei Tang Cheung are my brothers.”

Triplets, grown to adulthood. 

“We’ve ridden through half the world, between us,” Tang Hu continues, “and now our army rides with Sacha and Aleksis Kadianovskies” He gestures to the woman sitting across from him and the giant who has now stood and stepped off from the platform. His hair is yellow like the woman’s, though his beard is dark.

The giant smirks and says something to Hu, who translates: “Are you a messenger or the message?”

Tang Cheung mutters something. Tang Jin, who had threatened then smirked at Mako during their brief acquaintance now offers a cup, the air steaming above it. She takes it. Tang Cheung, sitting in a chair beside the platform raises his own cup poured from the same pot takes a sip. 

The liquid’s hot, scented, and almost like bitter water; the linger of the taste of spring in her mouth surprises her. 

“Where did you come from?” 

Not knowing where to put the cup, Mako holds it in her hand. It’s warm even through her gloves. “I am neither messenger nor message. I bear a treaty from Rome.”

“What is Rome?”

Mako cannot tell whether Tang Hu is serious. She remembers what Raleigh and she has known before they’ve decided on the course. Women and children aside, they have an army, trained, but desperate enough to take on trained Roman soldiers in winter. And further, these were barbarians who had gained knowledge of the lands before they ever invaded: they could outmaneuver Hansens, they could manipulate fear of the kaijus.

But who are her fathers fighting if Wei Tangs and Kaidonovskies are here?

“Rome has the claim of the land you are occupying without authority,” she answers.

Tang Hu’s smile is more sharply edged than his brother’s. “Rome should defend itself better if it sees itself as occupied. Perhaps it is the occupiers without authority and we the liberators of these lands.”

Calmly, Tang Cheung takes another sip from his cup.

Mako keeps her temper and resists the urge to fling the hot water at Tang Hu’s face. 

“I have a treaty from Rome,” she repeats. 

Sasha makes a gesture.

Aleksis stands and carries a table to the center of the room. A map is laid out in front of her, annotated in languages she doesn’t understand. Black and white markers are placed in front of her. 

“Show us Rome,” Tang Hu commands.

Mako looks at the map. It is like and unlike any others she has seen. Where the world is familiar, the map is sparse. Where the world is strange, rivers and mountain ranges have been drawn in detail.

“If you like, show us Rome’s enemies.”

But Mako’s not Dido, to make clever bargains and gain a kingdom. She has no desire to burn for a lover who never comes back.

“I bear a treaty,” she says, “so none of us has to lose any more. You have families in your midst. People have died, here,” she indicates the places where she’s known fighting. She points at the place where Chuck fell, then at the last known whereabouts of Herc and Pentecost.

Tang Hu translates, but Tang Jin raises an eyebrow when she places the last wooden marker. He strides out of camp then returns a moment later, speaking into Tang Cheung’s ear, whose gaze at her turns sharp. 

Did they think she could understand them?

The expressions on the brothers’ face became more somber. They engage in a discussion with the Kadanovskies. Sacha gives Aleksis a glance. He leaves the tent without looking at Mako.

Tang Cheung pours another cup of the hot liquid and hands it over to her. He takes the one from her hand. 

“Woman from Rome, “ he says, “your cup has grown cold. Sacha offers her hospitality and protection.” Then he, too, stands, and leaves the tent along with Tang Hu.

A moment later, another man enters, of Sacha’s tribe, for he speaks the same tongue. He bows after her order and returns with a heap of furs which he piles on the space Tang Hu vacates.

After considering Mako a moment, Sacha puts her hands by her own face and mimes sleeping before leaving. 

-=-=

Later, Mako’s brought a strange kind of soft cheese and some strips dried meat. There’s snow boiled hot in a basin as well. The tent is surprisingly warm. There’s a dagger hidden inside her clothes. She touches the hilt, imagines the inlay in her mind. Chuck carries an identical blade to battle. Honor our name.

Live, Chuck told her before he left. 

They had left the map. Something about the location of her fathers’ engagement troubles them. She recalls their expression: they expected the placement of the markers around Chuck’s rout, but across the traverse from the mountain, obscured by the thick woods and the direction of the winds, they did not expect that at all.

More troublingly, neither the Weis nor the Kaidanovskies seemed especially taken with the idea of a treaty. Mako knows herself so far to be a curiosity, but a respectable one. Sacha sat in conference as equal as any man. Yet, what she revealed, and she suspected, what is being confirmed, is far more important than the settlement of their people. 

Mako can only conclude that whatever is happening to Pentecost and Herc, their enemies were either stronger or weaker than they thought. Either deviation could’ve caused the alarm in their allies’ faces. If they were allies at all-

Mako did not mean to sleep, but had dozed until the sound of the camps roused her. 

There are no windows inside the tent, but light is percolating at the edges when Mako gathers herself and recalls her surroundings. 

She is uncomfortable. She doubts herself. She hopes Raleigh is successful. 

Tang Cheung enters, now fully arrayed for war. The fierce red of his armor belying the tranquility of his expression. 

“I think we must continue our council from yesterday, given unexpected events.” His manner is still polite.

Mako nods, relieved.

“How many of your family are here?” Tang Cheung asks after Tang Jin joins them. “How long ago did you become Roman?”

Before Mako could answer, there was a commotion outside.

Both brothers turn as Tang Hu enters, trailing a prisoner: bound, bloodstained, his face turned away. Mako’s breath catches in her throat.

“We caught this one trying to escape.”

Mako cries out as her arms are wrenched backwards. Tang Jin has hold of her elbows. 

“Let her go!”

Raleigh tries to launch himself from Aleksis arms as he’s hauled into the tent as well. Sacha’s following him.

“Who is this?” Tang Jin asks in Latin.

“My wife, you barbarians,” Chuck says at the same time as Raleigh says, “Don’t.”

Aleksis makes a gesture. Sacha laughs and says something to Tang Jin who asks, eyes dancing between Mako, Raleigh, and Chuck: “Whose wife is she?” He smiles. “How many husbands are you allowed?”

“Are you brothers?” Tang Hu asks Raleigh. 

Mako shakes off Tan Jin’s arms holding her. She steps backward to look at Sacha at eye-level. “I am Mori Mako, daughter of Senator Pentecost, praetorian perfect of Rome.”

Sacha snorts, says something rapidly. Tang Cheung shrugs and says, “Sacha says, daughter or wife, if we keep you here, how much land and gold do you think your father and husbands will give me? She does not think we need a treaty to settle here through winter and into spring and beyond and I have to agree with her, Mako Mori.”

“I will die before you use me to threaten Rome.”

Tang Cheung says, “And you could’ve died trying to save your husband brothers. Mori is a word associated with death in Latin isn’t it? Are you marked for it for it to be part of your name? So eager to die, to come alone into enemy camp. But where do you come from, Mori Mako? Are there any of your family who came with you from the East? I’ve been to Rome and found them all unfamiliar; your husbands resemble the people there more than you.”

“Then you know you’re on the territory of Rome. Let them go and you can still have land.” Mako takes a deep breath, taking the chance. ”You have women and children you hope to survive winter. We can help. A treaty with Rome will mean more food, more warmth, less death than if you have our agreement in piece. The winters here are hard and this one has been harder than most. And when spring come, you can stay.”

“I know empires and war, Lady Mori,” Wei Tang Cheung says. “And Aleksis and Sacha know winters and war. But the army that traps your army across mountain only knows death. They have neither women nor children, but were gathered from the worst of men; even without leader, they can overruns lands like locusts. We had hoped not to meet those marauders except in pursuit of them.”

“There is also the matter of the attempted escape of your husbands,” Wei Tang Hu adds.

“He wanted to save you,” Raleigh says to Mako, “when I said that you did not leave a sign of your safety for me. He refused to listen to me.”

“All very admirable,” Wei Jin translates for Sacha. “I would’ve done the same, but what to do with those monsters?”

At first, Mako thought they were referring to Romans, but then Chuck speaks: “I will lead my men to kill them for you. Return me the weapons and men you have taken prisoner and I will ride with you.”

Tang Hu laughs, jerks the rope until Chuck almost falls to his knees.

“Why ride with them directly when we can wait to see who wins between you, and both weakened?”

“Then let me go and I’ll face them alone,” Chuck rasps. “They are on our lands. They were the ones who fought us.”

Tang Hu frowns. “Do you think us fools?” He puts a hand on the hilt of his sword.

“Stop!”

Thing time, Tang Jin lets Mako go to Chuck. Chuck lifts his face to Mako and says, “I’m sorry.”

Mako kneels in front of him, she cannot say anything. He’s alive and beside them, Raleigh is, too. And that is all. 

The Kaidanovskies and the Wei Tangs are speaking. 

When Chuck’s forced to stand, Mako finds herself addressed by Tang Cheung. 

“We cannot trust you, you understand, but you are correct we do not wish to face the marauders ourselves. We will neither help them nor deter your husbands ride against them, but you will stay with us as a gesture of good faith. Provided, of course, there’s a treaty.”

“If she stays, then I stay your prisoner,” Chuck says.

“Your wife offers us a treaty for her home and you. Let us see if she means what she says.”

Ignoring Chuck’s protest, Mako draws out the treaty from inside her clothes. It’s in Latin. Tang Cheung reads it then passes it to Tang Jin, who interprets for Sacha and Aleksis.

But Aleksis snorts and shakes his head.

“He doesn’t think you are enough.”

“Enough for what?” Raleigh asks. “Mako cannot stay here.”

“Then show us how we may trust that you’ll not turn on us,” Tang Cheung says, pressing a red seal beneath the text in the treaty. “as we’ve been reminded: we have the elderly and children who cannot defend themselves. This treaty also does not explicitly cover your release, only that we will not hold you as prisoners as war.”

“We will swear it,” Raleigh says. 

Just then, a white hawk flew into the tent, throws something bloody between them, then hops on Raleigh before landing on Chuck’s shoulder.

At first, Mako is confused why no one moved, but then she sees that the hawk has a jess. Aleksis calls to it, but it merely goes from Chuck’s left shoulder to his right.

The tent is abruptly silent. The dead wolf pup is still bleeding sluggishly from its wound, staining the white fur red.

A sign, Mako thinks.

“A sacrifice is made,” Raleigh says. “The treaty is struck without loss to either side.”

To Mako’s surprise, Tang Hu throws back his head and laughs. Aleksis and he exchanged a few words. He brings out a dagger; a flash of metal, Chuck’s released from his bond and a moment later, Raleigh’s released as well.

“The hawk’s name is Striker,” Tang Hu explains. “It’s a sign. Rome, or what part we desire, shall we ours. Why should we fear a woman, even she is called death? Go home, Lady Mako. You’ve done your part.”

“Have I?” Mako asks softly, half to herself, as she signs the treaty with her name. The custom is different for their new allies. The blood is not enough.

Later, outside, Mako and Raleigh says farewell to Chuck. He is to ride first; the soldiers will follow him, in groups, with Mako to leave last. It’s Tang Jin’s idea: another reassurance. 

Mako cannot blame him. 

Raleigh looks away as Chuck hugs Mako close to him. “I will sign it, also, if that is what we need,” he whispers.

“Listen,” Mako says, her voice low so others will not hear. “I didn’t come here to watch you die. You lost a battle, not a war. Our fathers are trapped. Our home is in danger. They need you. Honor your name, go to them. There is no surrender for a treaty honored the name of your wife in the laws of Rome, if it would be honored it would be only through your survival.”

“Mako, don’t make me.”

“You always have a choice.” Mako steps away.

“Go,” Chuck turns to Raleigh as he brings up Lady Danger. “I don’t need you. Take her home. Keep them safe, or I will chase you down through this world and the next.”

He manages a smile for Mako. “Don’t stay here.”

And he is gone again.


	5. Chapter 5

The orange deepens to streaks of red across the silver. The shutters thump as the slaves close them behind her. Thin branches crackle between new flames. Distantly, a horn blasts the orders to change guard.

Mako measures out another spoonful of honey from a small pot by her elbow, mixing it with the egg, milk, and a little bit of wine. She tastes the posset, then frowns.

“I’ll wait until you finish.”

Raleigh’s eyes seem brighter than usual in the copper, the rest of him a blur in the metal of the spoon. She turns toward him. Raleigh’s in his armor, the segments clean and polished but still damaged in parts. 

“What did the letter say?” 

“I think he would like to tell you himself.”

Mako covers the bowl and wipes the spoon on a cloth before laying both back on the tray. The world swims for a moment as she stands. “Has the messenger left?”

“You can finish eating first. Maximianus says Herc’s fever will break soon.”

“Chuck hasn’t woken up yet even though he is suppose to be fine,” Mako says, the words spilling out of her. “I’m not allowed inside the room. He shouldn’t be allowed solid food when he wakes. ” She gestures to the tray. “The posset is for him to break his fast. The honey, too, if he wants more.”

Chuck likes his foodstuff sweeter than she prefers hers, probably because Maximianus had the rule of his diet for more of his childhood than hers. After Rome, after Tamsin’s house, everything in Hansen’s household had tasted bland, even the garum. 

Raleigh nods. “I’ll make sure he gets it.” His brows furrow. “Have you slept?”

Mako shakes her head. “I’ll sleep once I know what Rome thinks of our victory.”

Raleigh has an expression she can’t decipher, but the afternoon is waning, the distaste may just be a trick of light. 

Pentecost is still in his toga when Mako finds him on the bench outside Herc’s room. If not for her, he would’ve been inside. Mako braces herself. He’s been waiting for her.

“How did they know?” she asks.

“We do not live outside the empire, Mako.”

There can be no island of civilization, isolated to retain only the good. The roads alone render that impossible. 

“And they’ve reached a decision so quickly.”

“They will, if I don’t return,” Pentecost says. “The new emperor sits in a senate filled with old factions, old men adept enough to make a small incident into a large one.”

“And we are so far away that a false whisper can grow into one that cover the earth.” And there will no pyre big enough to burn away the desire and regret inside her if she remained merely, here. Dido had been a queen who won a kingdom with a single cowskin and she had still died. “What did the letter say?”

“They’ve heard troubling tales. They want Raleigh and I back, whenever the roads are safer for traveling. They recommend spring.”

“That’s too long.” Long enough for all deals, offers, counteroffers- all the politicking would be done just in time for the summer campaigns.

“I’ve to return.” Pentecost says. A sighs escapes him. “After Herc wakes up.”

He had sent his own guard riding ahead to deliver the news. Carts rolled out into the deep flurries of snow and biting winds.

Chuck, arrived last as his wont, shouted at Mako get in and stay inside, then collapsed before her like a puppet whose strings were cut. Neither he nor his father has woken since.

“And what will you do in Rome?”

“What I must. The emperor is young, but clever and ambitious enough to recognize that the empire’s borders must be secured for him sit secure. I’m the only choice he has.”

“A young emperor may not necessarily listen to old men even if it is the senate. A clever man would choose his own course. An ambitious man would weaken others to make himself the stronger.” Mako says. “We do not live entirely isolated from Rome, even here. What of you, once you’re once more at the breach? History and fortune have not left you with enough friends who agree with you.”

“Enough, Mako!” Pentecost sighs again. “Raleigh will come with me.”

Mako firms her voice. “I shall go with you.”

Pentecost frowns. “We’ve talked about this. Rome is not safe, especially now.”

“Have we?” Mako persists. “It was a long time ago. You found me. You raised me. You love me and hope for me. But if you are to fail and this house falls around me- my husband’s name and my father’s name disgraced-- what is the life that is left when I know that I’ve-”

“Mako!”

He loves her, but he is her father. His voice is strong, but his eyes are a little red. Mako lays a hand on his shoulder and says, softly, so that the frustration in her voice doesn’t taint the comfort. “We will have courage.”

-=-=

It is enough to know that her father sent a rider so far ahead to say Hansen Hercules has been injured.

Wagons, already provisioned with food, water, blanket, and medicines, roll out from the gates. All the torches are lit. Everyone is awake or awakened.

Mako sends a runner to the legionnaires to lookout for Raleigh, who had ridden away after hearing rumors of smoke rising a mile away from the homestead furthest north of their borders.

The world wavers as someone strikes the light for another torch next to far, and then douses it in the snow. Mako speaks too fast as she gives the orders, holding tightly into the fur-lined cowl. She has to repeat her words twice, then a third time, but no one hears her. Like a play, the torches light then dims one by one. 

The night is dark, quiet. The cold pierces through her. No, it’s the morning, the fingers of a winter dawn grasp weakly at her bare shoulder. It’s the third day. The fevers have passed. Raleigh has convinced Mako to go to bed. 

“My father will go to Rome, and you will go with him.” she says against Raleigh’s chest, letting its beat steady her own. She understands Raleigh will leave with Pentecost. He can bring him here and he can take him away and Mako cannot begrudge her father any help.

“Come with me.” Raleigh continues when she doesn’t answer. “To Rome. You want to go.” Raleigh shifts so he’s looking at her, eyes too bright. “And I need you there. And your name beside mine.“

“I have asked. My father has refused me.” 

“I am asking. Come with me to Rome, where you belong. It’s the reason why you’re here. A Severan is emperor again. We have a chance. The empire has a chance. Stay by my side, Mako.”

Every word strikes Mako, but what it means- She shakes her head. “How could I answer yes to both?” 

“I will ask him.”

“It’s not your place,” Chuck says from the doorway, an arm holding his side, voice still hoarse from battle. “Mako may do as she likes.” He limps over then sits down gingerly on the bed. “She is where she belongs.”

He still looks a bit peaky, but the unhealthy flush around his cheeks for the past few days is gone. The bandages around his ribs and arm are fresh. “You should still be in bed,” Mako said. 

Chuck throws her a dirty look. “I would be if you two didn’t wake me. Anyways, I am in one.” 

“You need to lie down.”

Chuck lies down between Mako and Raleigh, but there’s a large purple bruise and cut on his side that Mako doesn’t want disturb. 

“Mako’s not going to leave,” Chuck continues, turning toward Raleigh. “Even if you ask her while naked in her bed, Becket, running your mouth.” Mako feels her face burn, but Chuck continues. “And Pentecost is not going to agree either even if you do the same. He’s not inclined toward wild dogs.” 

Before she can tell him to get out, Chuck lets out a pained grunt. Raleigh’s straddling him, his hands locked around Chuck’s arms, pressing forward with his weight. He leans down until Chuck’s no choice but to look at him. 

“But I’m naked in your bed, Caius Hansen. Mako wants to go to Rome. Ask. “ The muscles in Raleigh’s arms and shoulders flex. Chuck makes another noise as Raleigh shifts so that he sits fully at his hip. “You need Mako to go to Rome. Or will you go and make an explanation to the senate why there are six thousand non-Roman soldiers on the borders of the empire on your watch? Pentecost is one man, but Rome will receive Mako and may grant you mercy. She’s your only choice if you want your house standing and a land without further war. Ask her.”

Looking at Mako briefly before getting off of Chuck, Raleigh throws on his tunic and leaves. 

Chuck doesn’t move after Raleigh leaves. Breathing hard, he stares at the ceiling for a while then says, “Herc woke up. Everyone’s running to his room. I was going to tell you.”

“I’m glad you’re feeling well enough to pick a fight with Raleigh,” Mako says, relieved for both of her fathers. Raleigh’s words are still churning through her. “At least your throat is not injured too badly.”

“My mouth is perfectly fine. So’s my tongue.” Chuck says, smug, shifting closer to her until his chin is on her shoulder. He settles into the spot Raleigh vacated. “Don’t go. Your father’s right in his decision.” He pauses and kisses her neck. “Rome is here, but the Rome you’re thinking about is improbable or three thousand miles of bad road and worse weather away. If anyone comes here, we’ll face them together.” He props himself on the bed on his elbow- his eyes are green, intent. Mako hears the rest of his words though he doesn’t say them. She’s always known them. Always.

Mako runs her hand down his front until he sighs. Chuck kisses her, mouth soft, but he still doesn’t ask. 

-=-=

“I think I’ve grown used to surviving battles. Humility is not a virtue we cultivate enough.”

We, Mako thought, not very kindly. Every passing day that Pentecost considers their conversation finished, she fears her own body’s quickening. 

Herc’s pale, sitting propped up against the pillow. His hair’s very red against his skin. The fever has thinned him, emphasized the qualities that reminded Mako of a fox or a wolf while Chuck has stretched the limits of his inheritance, being altogether broader, blunter, and him after a war is something else altogether that Mako cannot define without putting herself into contrast. 

But Herc’s smile is unique, and rare, for as long as Mako has known him. To receive it always felt like being gifted with a confidence. He smiles now and Mako remembers wistfully of herself at eleven, used to soldiers, but unused to men who resembled the image of Homeric heroes she held in her head so exactly. When did he and all this become so familiar?

“The Weis and the Kaidanovskies have sent letters regarding our plans to winter.” He pauses. “So did Rome. Pentecost and I will go face the senate once I’m back on my feet.” Mako swallows. The treaty is illegal in the laws of Rome. It was the only thing she could do, but it imperiled them all even as it relieved them of one. Caught between Charybdis and Scylla, the right choice is to risk a few rather than all. 

“I will go to Rome once my father agrees.” 

Herc sighs, though he doesn’t dispute it. “I had hoped Chuck would stay.”

Mako debates whether to continue, but Herc had half-raised her under his own roof. “Raleigh has asked me to go with him and we’ll plead our case to Rome. When the inquiries begin, I know more than anyone else about the treaty and everything else we have built together. Chuck will stay here, with the boys.”

It’s an argument and a confession. He may have taught her to hunt and married his son to her, but Hansen Hercules is the head of his house. 

And Herc merely looks at her as if he already knows. Did he? “Mako, I do not wish you under scrutiny at all, gawked at by anyone.” 

For a moment Mako doesn’t answer, surprised. She forgets, sometimes, that Herc has always been kinder than Homeric heroes, even in this. 

“It may be our only means of safety, that I go.” Three generations of Hansens far away from Rome and accusations of treason and Mako cannot but also think that she by herself could at least make others forget the sway the Hansen holds on the frontiers. Envy can be a deadly enemy. 

“Perhaps it is for the best, but it doesn’t seem quite right. There have always been enemies to fight, kaijus to live through, and Rome is eternal, whether in the substance of the world or only existing in the mind.” The corner of Herc’s mouth lifts. “Though a seer would be horrified by what fevers conjured in my mind. I don’t think I would ever see Rome again, especially now I can’t make the journey and every week is a delay. Pentecost has relayed that to me at length. Nevertheless, the kaijus are still coming and no argument or sword can stop them.”

“The city’s in quarantine,” Mako answers, surprised 

“Broken with the army’s return. There are fewer deaths than there would’ve been thanks to you and Raleigh but-“ He pauses, as if debates whether to continue, then nods toward the window. “If the Weis and Kaidonovkies mean what they say, then the kaijus might not come through at all.”

“Do you trust them?” Mako asks.

“You did and we lived, but if Rome decides to send an army, or ordered us to advance, we would have to obey. ”

“I saw no traces of kaijus in their camp,” Mako reminds him. “They could’ve hidden the the bodies or burned them, but it would make no sense. One in three afflicted with kaiju are killed by it. No general can stop children crying after losing their families.”

Mako remembers weeping into her pillow even years later, even in Rome, even when everything’s been wonderful in the day, only because a thought to share catches her unawares. She shakes her head, clears the memory. This will be the future. 

Herc is watching her carefully. “Pentecost expects Rome to make an alliance with the Weis and the Kaidonovskies." 

“And he would sacrifice his life for a future he would never see if he goes to Rome alone. You know as well as I that Rome ignores us except when a senator wishes to make a gesture. We cannot depend our survival on their mercy. There’s too much to lose.”

But between the kaijus and the peoples venturing westwards, it’s only a matter of time before their home will be overrun even if the Weis and the Kaidonovskies leave them unmolested. 

“Ask your father again. Tell him what you know of the kaijus, of the camps.”

“But you just reminded me that we cannot.” Mako blinks back the sudden well of tears to her eyes. “We do not have the authority for the treaty to be granted. Rumor will carry words back to Rome.”

“No, not in full, not yet.” Herc agrees. He gazes toward the window again where the land stretches into the horizon. “But we can admit their defense against kaijus. We cannot grant official sanctions for a cult brought over by an army that will escape the attention of the senate’s scrutiny on your father-“

“Unless, “ she continues, seeing the path of his mind, “it’s a mystery cult for women. “ If their allies felt their masculinities impugned in speeches from faraway Rome, perhaps they’ll consider it a fair trade when Rome overlook the houses they will build for their new homes. 

-=-=

She finds Raleigh pacing in the library, looking as he’s just fought. 

Annoyed at the idea that he and Chuck has argued again, Mako takes a stylus and a wax tablet, scratcheing out what she wants to say to Pentecost to convince him before giving up and starts drafting a letter to the Kaidonovskies regarding their proposal. 

“I talked to your father.” Raleigh can’t meet her eyes. He’s rubbing his hands as if he’s done something terrible. 

Mako stands up and makes her way to the door.

“Mako, wait!”

Mako stops, turns around.

“I asked him if he’ll let you come with me.”

“He said no,” she guessed.

“He reminded me that I’m a guest in this house and forget myself.”

“You have.” Raleigh looks hurt. “But I appreciate it,” she continues, goes back to the desk, and relates the plan Herc supports. “We have to stop the kaijus first, before we can go to Rome,” Mako tells him. “And we cannot leave if the Weis and Kaidonovskies knows the treaty to be non-existent in the eyes of Rome. Every day’s delay in giving them an answer for their reeption means more chance for the kaijus to kill.”

The realization makes Raleigh pale, but he says nothing. It’s Herc’s choice. It’s Mako’s choice. It’s Chuck’s choice. 

When Mako goes to speak with Pentecost, Raleigh merely wishes her luck. 

“Come to Rome then,” Pentecost says, relenting more quickly than Mako thought. “But not because you’re my daughter. I do not need you to be in the mourner’s procession. I have no ambitions that you need to fulfill. Raleigh does not need to come back with me. I offered you a map once-” 

“I remember.” Mako answers. “But you raised me to be Roman. This is not for Raleigh. I would’ve done the same; or at least, intended the same, even if I’ve never met him. It’s for my family. And the allies and empire we’ve been building. And this,” she says steadily, “is my responsibility for my home.”

She sees Chuck in the corridor, walking with Max on a leash. Seeing her, he stops and hands off the leash to the attendant with him. 

“I’m not leaving yet,” Mako begins as he approaches. She feels defensive even though she knows it’s the best. “I will not leave without saying goodbye.”

“You are going with him,” Chuck says. “I should go with you.” He’s frustrated. “You know I never asked you because I know.”

“You know,” Mako admits. “But it’s not for him. Stay here. Raise our children. I will never marry Raleigh. Trust me.”

Trust her not to give up her children and her husband to the kaijus and to the army that will be lodged within their gates. Trust her as she had trusted him all the times she has watched him leave and she stayed. 

“What difference does it make?” Chuck asks, bitter. “How much did it matter to you? You told me that if you were a man, you’d have anyone you liked. And I’ve always remembered it. And for a long time,” he voice grows quiet, “I was the only one.”

Mako’s almost forgotten her words, then feels ashamed she has. “I was fourteen,” she whispers. “You’re still the only one.” He is her husband. The only man who’s the father of her children. “It’s why I must go.“

“It’s why I’m letting you go.” Gaius Hansen says, standing closer until she has to raise her head to look at him. His hands rest on her hips. His breaths are soft against her face. “This is our present. We have a family. Our story goes on and it’ll always be longer than your love for him.”

“But you can love him, too, for saving me. “ She smiles softly, feeling the way his hand climbs higher until they reach across her shoulder blades. “And you can love him for the way he makes you miss his body.”

Chuck huffs a laugh into her hair, hugs her closer, then lets go, pulls a lock of her hair free, twirling it between thumb and forefinger. Mako reaches for the dagger she carries with her and cuts it off for him. 

He closes his hand. “A thousand kisses is not a sacred oath, you’re mine first and for longer. And I’ve never hidden from you about who I am and who I’ve been.” He lowers his head and kisses her softly, shy again after so long. “I will stay.”

When spring breaks and the melting ice has turned the roads muddy, Mako leaves with her father and Raleigh to go to Rome.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mako in Rome.

Through the small gap between the curtains of the litter, Mako can see the lictors push through the crowds, raising their fasces high as if to beat them away. She sighs, leans back. They’ve preserved her father whatever’s lift of his dignity, at least for the duration as they deliberate the punishment.

There is Rome of Mako’s memory, the Rome through letters, and the Rome through the images on the coins that pass through her hands. Over the years, they have blurred together in her mind; Rome has become titanic and yet shapeless, where all things could happen as long as one had enough will and luck. 

But in the Rome with its ochre painted pillars, the new Severan Emperor, Alexander Severus, has just turned sixteen, and power resides in the hands of his mother, Julia Avita Maemea, who appoints the advisors for her son who faceds a senate of men scrambling for power. 

Raleigh offers his hand as she steps onto the cobblestones and stays through the entrance to the Circus Maximus. She looks up toward the imperial pulvinar, but the emperor has not yet arrived. 

They find their seats where Pentecost raises his voice and stands. He’s wearing his full senatorial toga. It’s not until he gestures that Mako sees the other figure behind him. 

“This is Gellius Newton.” 

“Call me Gellius, there’s only one of me anyways,” the short man says, speaking very quickly. “Greens. And you? By the look of you, Blues I think. Not quite the choice I would make today, but I think it’s like a battle, don’t you think? The excitement. The thrill. The speed of the enemy bearing down upon you.” Gellius’ hair is cut longer than fashionable; there are stains on his toga, even the senatorial stripe seemed dingy.

“The Blues are hardened veterans,” he continues, “they-“

Mako rolls her eyes, discreetly.

Beside her, Raleigh tenses. “A chariot race has little to do with battle or war. The charioteers answers only to the applause of the crowds. Even if there are fortunes won and lost and even blood and deaths; he’s not weighed down by the death of friends.”

Mako glances up at Raleigh from beneath the edge of her veil. What deaths? Men and women die in war and elsewhere, why waste words on a man who cannot even respect the dignity of his office by keeping his toga clean? Mako mouths her question, but Raleigh’s attention’s now to someone in the stands.

Gellius seems equally struck. Perhaps it’s been a while since someone interrupts his words, but before he could speak further, they stand for the emperor’s arrival. He’s too far away to see clearly, but every gesture ripples down the seating. 

No, it’s not like a battle. Each color for each team has taken on the significance of political factions; factional strife is civll unrest. The passion of the fans must find peace in the justice of fortune.

“Who do we support?” Mako asks. There are house alongside the Circus owned by wealthy knights or even freedmen from where sometimes the emperors or senators may view the race. The favor is costly, but while there are laws governing the number of people that may gather on the street, a house may hold as many conversations as it is able. 

But Pentecost has chosen the seats for the senators. And at the Circus, men and women do not seat separately. They’re here to be seen and noted. Mako cast a longing eye at Raleigh, whose attention seems fixed by the racecourse. The horses tear down the lanes in unison. These maneuvers could provide an inescapable ambush coming down or around high ground, but here, the crowds cheered as the chariots turned a corner. 

Pentecost smiles, bends lower so he can speak in her ear. “The man who cares.”

-=-=

“You do not want to cross Maemea,” Vipsania says, her shapely dark head in profile as the jeweler fastens a new necklace around her neck; the emeralds highlight the color of her eyes, her gaze sharp as the edge of a sword even beneath heavy lashes. “We all feel life and death, but of the two sexes, only women knows the intimate details of both. Maemea also knows power that can come from the transition.” She thanks the jeweler, who bows and retreats. Her attendants take away the rest of the purchase as Vipsania turns toward Mako again.

“What do you think?” she asks.

“Which? The necklace or the emperor’s mother? Both impressive.”

Vipsania’s mouth quirks. Her face transforms to something more girlish and familiar. She was almost a woman when Mako was still a girl; her father had been Tamsin’s childhood friend. Her mother was a foreigner and died when Vipsania was born; from her Vipsania inherited hair that fell in waves and ringlets without the aid of clay or curling tongs, but not her features- the type of beauty seldom seen in Rome except by the side of her father in the form of his freedman secretary. 

Mako remembers seeing them together once, a golden head against a dark one, leaning closely together in the study she was sneaking past. 

Gossip and rumor died with them soon after Tamsin’s own death. Vipsania’s cousin married her to Hermannus- a marriage that would’ve never been granted had Vipsania’s father been alive. He had intended his only child a better marriage than to a crippled Gottlieb, no matter the quality of his philosophy and mathematics. Or how much Vipsania professed to love all three. 

“The emperor’s mother has survived and thrived when the men of her family have failed. If you have her attention and sympathy, I do not think anyone would dare to speak otherwise of your father.”

But according to Raleigh and Pentecost himself, they already have. Even if the kaijus do not destroy her home and the Weis and Kaidonovskies are their allies, their treaty is temporary until Rome makes a decision of whether to censor Pentecost, Hansens.

“Furthermore,” continues Vipsania, “it was Emperor Septimius himself who granted your father and Hansen’s authorities over the taxes, the right to farm, and to administer as their offices allow. Both her and Julia Domna accompanied their husbands on campaigns. It’ll only be a little scandalous even if it’s revealed you rode with them.”

Julia Domna was Augusta of Rome, Emperor Septimius Severus’ wife, called mother of the camps for she accompanied her husband on every campaign from Africa to the Palatine. Mako knew all her portraiture on the coins, but she knew emperors and empresses were not normal men or women; the rules of their lives are different if simply by the power they wield. 

“I’m not worried for myself.”

Vipsania lays an arm on Mako’s shoulder, her voice full of sympathy. “I know your father’s back in Rome. I am sorry I don’t see your Chuck. I’ve been looking forward to meeting him. And I’m sorry that your children cannot come with you.”

Vipsania had visited her just before the wedding, full of praise for the intelligence of her Hermannus and advice for the married bliss. Mako, who had no illusion of Chuck’s intelligence had simply answered that Chuck would go swimming and hunting with her; she kept silent and nodded at the advice as a good unmarried girl should.

That year, within the span of months, Chuck’s half a foot taller, his shoulder broad enough for armour. After swimming, he would lie there on the grassy bank, let Mako run her hands up and down the irresistible new lengths of his arms, his torso, his legs. And sometimes, he had lain very much the same on a couch deep in the night, their readings forgotten on the desk.

“It is safer for them to remain-“ Mako says, surprised at the sudden choke in her voice. Vispania pats her arm. “You are in Rome,” Mako finishes, attempts a smile. “You are reason enough to visit.”

“You’re very flattering, Mako,” says Vipsania, her tone turns serious. “But Hermannus is a philosopher who’ll never lead an army or persuade the masses to action. Your father and your husband’s family are Septimius’ Praetorians. They have command soldiers far away from Rome.” She knits her brows. “Don’t you know who’ll be named the new Praetorian prefect?”

Vipsania’s too polite to mention Pentecost’s current state of disgrace.

Mako shakes her head.

“The emperor’s mother has recalled Ulpian, the Syrian, from exile.”

“The lawyer?” Mako asks, surprised. “The man whose never been in battle and who proposes to reduce the pay of the Praetorian Guards?”

“Careful,” Vipsania warns, “he’s in favor. And it’s rumored that the Maemea intends him to be Praetorian Prefect.”

“But he knows nothing-“ Mako stops. All she’s known about the Praetorians she has learned from her father. Septimius disbanded the old Praetorian Guard when he entered Rome and replaced them with his own legions and so it had seemed right that he should have the men whom fought and bled with him to protect and to share the empire.

“He knows he must curb the power of the Guards.”

“Do you think so as well?” Mako asks, warily. 

Vipspania raises her hand, almost as if to place her middle finger against the thumb and make a speech, but then she strokes the scrolls on her table, set slightly messily against necklaces and earrings. She begins, wistful, “I want to live in Rome in the house where my husband grew up, I want to host symposiums, I like to go to the Circus. I’ve been more fortunate than others to have them so far. I want the same for all my friends. For you.”

Mako does not speak. She hears the argument, delivered by a friend, smiling a smile she’s known before she practiced her own smiles in front of a mirror. Nonetheless- the last three emperors all died at the hands of the Praetorian Guards 

“Then tell me about someone who can command the attention of a lawyer like Ulpian.” 

“Command?” Vipsania shakes her head. “He’s a foreigner. He has no ties that can help or hinder him in Rome. He owes no allegiance except to the Emperor and Emperor’s Mother. He does not observe our rules.”

But she says _mores_ , not _lex_ , implying a matter of personal fastidiousness rather than the law for the public. 

“Interests then? How could a man who does not share Rome’s customs uphold its laws?”

“Perhaps Maemea hopes he’s keener on his duties than what she perceives what would obscure them.”

“Rome is not hers,” Mako says.

“Nor is it your,” Vipsania returns. “Nor is it mine. Nor is it his. We live our lives in its embrace. We live in its orders.”

Mako opens her mouth, closes it. Her face burns. 

Seemingly surprised at her own outburst, Vipsania looks away then stands. She murmurs the words to the girl who has just come to the door, looking curiously toward Mako then back toward her mistress. 

Mako turns away. Through the open door that led to a courtyard, she faces a small garden. Two chairs stood under a large tree, its trunk gnarled with scars of old branches. Beside the chairs stood two small tables upon which sat bowls of fruit, those, too underneath the canopy of shadow that stretched across almost to the walls, but not enough to cover the flowers that grew alongside the footpaths. It’s easy to imagine two figures side by side, heads bending together, thoughts in concert.

“You’ve arrived in Rome without your husband of the frontier.” Vipsania’s voice seems far away. “To show that your family supports the new Emperor.”

Mako is Vipsania’s friend. She has seen her grown to be married, but not the marriage or what and who comes after. 

When Mako doesn’t answer, Vipsania reminds her, “A good marriage can spare your father. Caelius Julius is looking for a wife. He’s harmless but your father can do with his friends. Who will you marry, Mako?”

Mako flinches. She’s forgotten that she too, is coinage. But instead of the expected wave of anger, she merely felt tired. “I did not come to Rome to marry-“

She jumps as a door slams and hears the rhythmic thumping against the floor along with two bickering voices.

Gottlieb’s walks so quickly that it’s almost impossible to see his gait is different from another man.

He ignores Mako and directs this toward his wife. “Tell him otherwise.” He raises his walking stick and stabs the air.

Vipsania glances at Mako and chides, “We’ve a guest.”

“Can she weigh in?”

“Newton,” he raises his stick again at the man following him-- Mako recognizes him from the circus-- “thinks there is enough logic in grammar that should law follow it necessitates the role of the divine.”

“This is Mako, daughter of Pentecost,” Vipsania says, undeterred.

“Nonetheless, if he were here he would agree that most utter nonsense.”

“I think,” Vipsania says primly, “there is a god for desires and a god for hearth….”

“And the hand of god is in mathematics,” Gottlieb concludes.

Newton snickers. 

“We will have it out at Lighthouse,” Gottlieb warns. “She won’t like your idea.”

“Her guests might,” returns Newton. 

“Unsavory Cretans,” mutters Gottlieb.

“And Syrians, Tyrians, Ulpians…” adds Newton, gleeful. Gottlieb’s face darkens.

“I want you safe,” Vipsania murmurs quietly to Mako.

“You have your family,” Mako says. “I have mine.”

-=-=


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Raleigh has a secret...

Raleigh’s hair’s grown long on the journey: soft tendrils that catch the light in the mornings as they move across her skin. 

His hair cut short into the proper style by the barber, the angles of his face are sharper and sterner. Facing Raleigh, full of gravitas, officer and gentleman in his toga, heavy wool cloth skimming the straight lines of his body, Mako finds herself straightening her back. But his hands are gentle as they pull slightly at the waist of her dress, tucking the folds. 

“I think I’ve all the qualifications to make a good maid.” He looks up at her through his lashes, sensing the tension in her body. “No one cares as much as I do how comfortable you feel. In your clothes—“ he continues matter of in fact; a corner of his mouth lifts, “or out of them.”

Mako lets out a small laugh and Raleigh smiles. “Lighthouse,” Raleigh asks. “Do I know her? Is Caelius a bastard?”

Poets and philosophers— Caelius of House Julian… 

In the mirror, her corners of her eyes are unlined, her skin is still firm. She arches an eyebrow at the face Raleigh’s making at her reflection. 

“She is a poet, the wife of a man I’ve forgotten the name of.” The first time Mako met her, Lighthouse is scarcely older than her now. Mako thought her name was funny. 

“A widow then.”

“A rich and influential one.”

“So we must please her.”

Mako shakes her head. “No. She no longer takes active part in influencing others. Her parties are neutral ground. She extends protection to her guests and provide them with sanctuary.”

Raleigh embraces her, careless of their clothes, “An opportunity, Mako.”

“Do you truly care so much of what happens to my father?”

“I care,” Raleigh answers against her ear so that it’s a whisper she felt against her ears, pressed so close, the sound against her chest, “Because he is your father and whatever brings your sadness will end in mine. But more than that, you made me believe that the empire can still be good.”

-=-=

“Did you have time for poetry at Shatter-dome?” Mako grimaced at the mangled pronunciation. The sound association of the native word in Latin’s unfortunate. 

“There can’t be much society,” the woman continues, a fluttery creature in a blonde wig—Gallic, probably-- “barbarians don’t speak Greek.”

“You speak ill of our Roman poets,” Gellius pipes up somewhere from the side. “Yet I saw you laugh at all the correct parts.”

The woman scarcely glances at him before turning to Mako again. “Yet it’s strange of you to come be back in Rome, but it must be such relief as well. The food, the company, and friends.”

Her smile is just light enough, her face young just enough, that it’s impossible to tell if the last betrayed the type of political intelligence carefully bred and cultivated in the old patrician families. Mako has arrived in the company of the Gottliebs instead of Raleigh at Vipsania’s insistence. There are too many people who remember Sevier in attendance. Mako still need the reputation of her name.

“Rome is a different city from the one I left,” Mako says, plucking a grape from the tray. 

“Oh, I don’t think so. It’s always been the same. It’ll always be a place you come back to. All the world is here.” There’s a gladiator—surely that is a gladiator—in an armor that’s too ornate and too flimsy at the same time, moving in their direction, and the conversation ends, quite suddenly. The girl’s very young, much younger than Mako after all, and the gladiator’s very handsome.

But Raleigh’s golden head, bronze in the candlelight, catches Mako’s attention. He’s approaching Lighthouse. 

Lighthouse, though stooped by age, is still a tall woman. Standing, she’s of a height with Raleigh. Is it surprise that Mako see in her face? 

Raleigh’s talking to Lighthouse, quietly, earnestly. The people around them have dispersed and they’ve maneuvered themselves next to the ice centerpiece a lion, melting in a ring flowers. 

Mako’s in Raleigh’s direct line of sight, but Raleigh’s gaze passes over the centerpiece, then again, over her.

“You are Pentecost’s daughter, I believe.” 

Mako jumps. She tears her gaze from Raleigh to the speaker: tanned and leathery, a face like an unfinished clay figure, the clothes are wool and without silk, the eyes, however, deep and sharp, almost animal in intensity.

“You must excuse me, I don’t know-“

“I’m Ulpian, but I don’t know your name, which rather puts me at a disadvantage.”

“Mako,” Mako answers.

“Mako,” Ulpian repeats, dragging out each syllable. “The name’s not Latin. You look more-” He stops himself, lowers his head and shakes his head a little, as if embarrassed by what crossed his mind. 

“It’s my name,” Mako returns, defensive. 

Ulpian recovers. “Sevier is also your name. So you understand, Mako, of course, that you’re not enough.”

Rattled, Mako says, somewhat rudely, “You speak in riddles.”

“This is the city of Rome, the center of the empire and I am charged with the safety of the empire, Mako. You see, you cannot predict the events of Rome from your corner. Rome must be able to administer the justice throughout the entire empire”

“We had kaijus-“

Ulpian, undeterred, continues. “There are always disease. They pass. We go on. Kaijus have always been here, but barbarians at Roman gates that opened without consent from Rome? Mako, you must know a child will always test a limit and then another. And is not Rome our patres?”

“My father has guarded the borders of the empire his entire life.“

Ulpian shakes his head. “Your father’s a man of yesterday’s vision. Pentecost’s era is passing. I have my duties. They have theirs. You have yours.”

“Then you also see that we have no other way of keeping peace. We asked for help that did not come.”

“Tks, Mako. Are you not Roman? Is not your husband? Your father? Hansen? And all the soldiers under their command? The peace is to be kept by Rome and for Rome. You have kept the peace, but not for the benefit of Rome.”

“Is it not?” Mako asks coldly. “As you reminded me, we are Roman; therefore, our safety and the safety of every Roman should be enough.”

“I concede,” Ulpian says, “that what you have accomplished is masterful. I am not a soldier; I consider strengthening through an empire through war is both impractical and costly. I’m here only to remind you that Rome is closer than you think and what you do have consequences.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you’re fighting for a future that will never come. The people and the Senate provide for the empire and the empire cannot be changed overnight.”

Mako waits for the threat or warning. She can’t tell why Ulpian has approached her instead of her father. Not knowing annoys her. 

“Your father or husband, one of them will have to bear the punishment. Will you choose?”

Mako shakes her head. “That’s not a true choice. I do not have the right to make it.”

“No, it’s not; nonetheless, I think you know it without me ever speaking it aloud. I am merely reminding you, Mako. The time for dream is over. Your home is very far away but it can be here if you choose. The city’s the empire even if the armies may be a thousand leagues away. Better people than me thought you deserve to know.” 

-=-=

Mako dismissed the litter bearers when they are nearly home. With the moon high and the torches along the way lit, the tree-lined parkway in shadow’s quiet. And Raleigh, too, is quiet beside her.

She hasn’t told him about the conversation with Ulpian. She hasn’t told Vipsania. How easy it is just to let the crowd pass around her, indulge in food and drink, and listen to the readings from the latest poets with the earnestness she recalls from her youth. It’s easier to forget Ulpian and that she’s been unable neither to plead nor to argue her case in front of him. 

“Better people” is a threat. Ulpian’s too important, too careful, and there’s no reason for him to make an empty threats. Mako, remembering the smile and the house and the peach trees and Vipsania holds onto Raleigh’s hand a little tighter.

It’s good to walk with him in the evening, even if she’s full of worries, but Raleigh hasn’t spoken to her since she left. 

“You will marry Caelius Julius of course.”

“What?” Nonplussed, Mako stops walking. “I will do no such thing.”

“You’ve given him no encouragement, but he has good motivation.” Raleigh speaks slowly, deliberately delaying every word as if he’s trying to understand himself. There’s an inexplicable sadness, there, too. Raleigh brings up both of her hands and holds them close against his chest. She stretches out her fingers to touch the almost imperceptible roughness of his chin. “Caelius Julius is in want of a wife in Rome of good standing and you need a protector.”

“I have the protection of my family,” Mako says gently, “and you when I cannot do it myself. Furthermore, I marry for my own reason, not someone else’s. And I did.” 

Raleigh draws a shuddering breath. “I thought Rome suited me once. I still cannot understand, though sometimes I wonder, how we’ve come to this.”

“Because you are you.” Surely that’s enough. “And I’m me.” What else could be simpler to explain the complexities that have drawn them together: unforeseen, undreamt, and nonetheless sympathy and inclination for as much time as they have. 

“I can’t marry you. I cannot offer anything that you already have.”

Mako falls silent, thinking of her promise to Chuck. A hideous thought occurs to her. Her husband is is far away, yet Ulpian speaks of the reaches of the empire. “Why-“

But before she finishes her thought, there’s a sudden lurch of pain at the back of her head and the sky fills with stars before it goes dark.

-=-=

She wakes up in her own bed in Rome. Pale lights through the window threads through her memory. 

“He did not intend to murder I think.” Raleigh’s voice is quiet. “But I did not even see his face.”

Mako’s head feels like as if she’s fallen off a tree. She reaches up and touches gingerly the back of her head. There’s a lump the size of a pigeon’s egg. 

“He wore a mask,” Raleigh continues. She turns her head toward his voice. He’s shed the heavy woolen toga to stand in his tunic still from last night. Standing arm crossed, head leaning against the wall, he’s dictating to a scribe standing discreetly in the corner. 

“What did he take?” Mako rasps.

In two strides, Raleigh’s beside her bed. “The physician said you’ll be all right but I couldn’t be sure.”

There dark circles under his eyes. “I cannot-“ Raleigh murmurs, looking at the blanket now. “I cannot. I should’ve never returned to Rome.”

“Raleigh, what happened?” She sits up, touches the back of his head. 

“The man didn’t take anything. He ran,” Raleigh continues. Closer, there’s a long scratch on his arm. “And left this.”

The door has opened and closed in the conversation. They’re alone. The coin shines as if newly minted, still slightly damp from Raleigh’s hand. That particular dies did not last long. Mako has seen the sketches and some samples when pregnant with her first and forever bored, hot, and hungry. She’s not seen the sample for a long time: it’s Heliogabalus’ sun god. 

“So it is a threat. We’re watched.” Mako says, mostly to herself. She casts an appreciative eye over the coin. The artistry’s magnificent even if the message's distasteful. 

“I should’ve never returned to Rome. Lighthouse warned me yesterday, but I didn’t stay away.”

“You think they meant to kill me because of you?‘ Accusations of adultery would likely only draw attention to her, which Ulpian expressly did not want. Furthermore, legally speaking, they would have to recall Hansens to Rome- Gods, if Chuck comes here. Does he? Mako needs to consult a lawyer.

“’Ulpian thinks-”

“Mako, listen.” Raleigh says, eyes intent on her face. “I cannot protect you. I am a danger to you in Rome.” 

Mako opens her mouth. Closes it. 

“The emperor requested my brother for his bed. Yancy refused. It was a request, after all.”

Mako waits. Heliogabalus’s predilections for unsuitable bedmates were rumors. Gossip she had dismissed as being unimportant. And by the time his heretical religious reform reached the edge of the empire, he was dead. 

“We were on duty. Accidents happen.” Raleigh mouth thins. “An accident with a knife in the dark in an imperial palace. And yet, nobody minded. His body fell and disappeared. My brother had no grave.”

The puzzle comes together. A praetorian guard, a man who’s enjoyed the benefits of his sex and station- whence come his discontentment? So taken with him as he exists for her, as if he has no past, she’s never asked. “Then you went to the wall.”

“I wanted to kill him,” Raleigh says, the grief in his voice raw.

“Did you?” Mako asks, suddenly fearful. An emperor does not die of insult. Heliogabalus died at the hands of the Praetorian guards who were supposed to protect the emperor and his household, their interests tied to the emperor’s favors, whoeever he may or will be. Raleigh and Yancy were part of the guard.

Does she know him at all? Raleigh looks at her, his gaze dark. “Yes, but not all for revenge. It was convenient.” The last word spoken so bitterly that it must’ve been somebody else’s once. “The plan was in place before Yancy. But I violated my sacred oaths. Emperors are mortal and even the gods themselves could be wounded, but I swore and broke my oath, whatever else to be said.”

Mako doesn’t answer. She remembers the wary look Lighthouse cast her in the way. How Ulpian mentioned that there were better people who thought she deserved to know. She thought it’s because of her father. But perhaps- Rome has known her father for years. They’ve known Hansen, too. Their friendship was, if the old guardsman of her childhood was correct, the stuff of legends. She had not cared for scandal when Raleigh stood beside at the circus, but he had stood beside her father, too.

She relates to Raleigh her conversation with Ulpian; angry at her own suspicion of him and yet feeling justified in spite of it. Something must’ve showed in her voice or words. For afterwards, Raleigh becomes silent. “There’s one obvious solution.”

“I am not going to marry Caelius Julius.” 

“No,” Raleigh says, smile wry. “You made that clear. I’m going to turn myself in.”

“No.”

“Conspiracy of subversion will save your family and you.” 

Mako pushes his arm out of the way as she gets out of bed, then became so dizzy she sits down again. “I’m not going to let you. We don’t know if Ulpian really means that a single sacrifice would be enough to appease whoever felt them aggrieved; furthermore, you’re not my husband or my father and he wanted one of them; he said nothing about the consequences at home either.” The word has slipped out. Home- she had gone from Rome and left it behind. She had left her father behind, too. Her home is another place. With Chuck, with her children, with the lares at the hearth and the rhythm and the shuffling silence in the morning. 

“No, Mako. I’m a danger to you and everyone you know.”

“And yet you said nothing.” Anger now leaves her trembling. Her hands curl into fists, but tears come instead. Rome had seemed so far away that it’s easy to think none of warning signs mattered. Raleigh is a known conspirator. Her father might’ve known the rumors, but he probably didn’t know the depth or the complexity of the conspiracy, intent as he was, and they were all, keeping their corner of the empire for themselves.

“You wanted me to come to Rome,” she says finally, choking. “I wanted it, too, of course but you-“ 

Raleigh says: “Because I wanted you with me. Because I’ve seen you when I close my eyes. Because I thought it wouldn’t matter as long as we’re together. I dreamt-“ He resumes after a moment. “The tides rising against us and yet we float. To see you, to touch you, to be so close to you and know that you’re real was enough for me to discard everything I know of the world.”

And this, too, an echo of all her dreams. Mako closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. 

And all the days in which he stood by her, all the nights he slept beside her- when she feels she’s no more secrets to give and yet he’s refused her this secret. Mako looks at Raleigh as if seeing him for the first time. She loves him. She believes him. She cannot stop him. 

If once she thought, even in the vague that she could live in a house with Raleigh, in Rome. The veil has been torn away. 

He must’ve known all along. He brought her to Rome so she would see his last days.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mako and consequences.

No prison existed in Rome before Catiline. Two centuries afterwards, stone and wooden cells have housed thieves, murderers, and kings- all condemned to die. 

Mako takes Raleigh’s hand, touches the lines on his face, pale from the month of imprisonment. 

“Leave,” Raleigh says every day as if it’s the last time he’ll see her. 

“Gellius is still arguing for you in court,” Mako says. “It’s not treason if everyone was deceived. Also, of course none of the powers that be regretted the last emperor’s death. It could be exile.” She does not confess her worst fear, that it could be death, in one manner or another. Her comeuppance, she thought unreasonably. “And if you become a gladiator, I’ll ransom you,” she continues, trying to smile. 

“Let me fall,” Raleigh says. He presses a kiss to her hand. “You need to live.”

“Chuck said the same thing before I left.”

“Well, we’re right.”

“So do you.”

And we’ll be together again, Mako thinks. 

-=-=

They've taken Raleigh in the middle of the night, transported him to some small circus in some far flung corner of the empire, if even indeed he is alive.

-=-=

Did anyone know her in Rome? Would anyone ask her whether she was still Caius Hansen’s wife? 

And Mako wants to stay, wants to go home. She frets. She weeps. Becomes angry at her own tears. Thinks them as unworthy. And wants to cry all over again. She cannot pay spymasters because she’s being spied on herself. Pentecost is weary; she knows he’s looking, too. Raleigh’s guilt must be complete. 

“You’ve only known him for a year,” says Vipsania when she comes to visit, bringing a basket of peaches, now cut in long slices on a plate in front of them. At Mako’s start- “Perhaps even less than that,” she observes. Her gaze travels to Mako’s belly. “Go home while you can still travel. Rome has done what it can do for you.”

“Raleigh-“

“Raleigh’s gone.”

“I’m going to save him.”

Vipsania tilts her head. “Why? He’s offered all his has. What else do you expect?”

“So I should honor his sacrifice?”

“Well, if you put it that way.”

Vipsania’s the one who’s made a life for herself and Mako…hasn’t. Except she has. All the danger is gone. It’s time for her to go home: there’s a man who love her there, children who miss her, a household that prefers her presence, and a land full of promise of the future. 

“Did you ever think you’ve stolen a life from someone else? That you’re a stranger in a place you don’t belong.”

“Mako,” Vipsania’s losing her patience. “You’re not taking anything from him he’s not willing to give. The simple matter is, you’ve been fortunate. You’ve never lacked a confidante since you were twelve years old. And even if I can understand that one man is not substitute for another, you still have a home.”

Mako cannot tell her of the death she feels in her bones despite the life she holds inside her. Every pregnancy transforms her; her life becomes another’s for a while and there’s no comparable joy and no comparable sadness of the self that she’s lost, the vitality left in her soul. And until Raleigh came, she was merely waiting, preparing-

“A confluence of circumstances and events have made him important.“ Vipsania continues. Her hands trail over the selection in the plate. “And that time is ending. There’s a time to plant, a time to harvest. A time to cleave and a time to part.”

“A man is not a plant,” Mako says, brushing aside a tear that’s leaked from her eye. “I’ve parted from him for long enough. I won’t have only memories.” Pentecost had told her of pyramids in Africa, of the sphinx that Oedipus challenged, monuments of the past that no one ever remembers. She doesn’t remember her own past. And without Raleigh, her dreams would be merely that: monsters that rise out of the depth of her soul to go unchallenged, plaguing her waking life. Nobody else would know.

“You’re with child,” Vipsania reminds her. Chuck’s child, it goes unspoken. Or perhaps Raleigh’s. Vipsania doesn’t know. 

“Yes,” Mako says. “But it will be born.” And the tides of the politics of Rome will have changed by then. It’ll be safer for her to travel, to search for Raleigh. The disobedience is punished. Her father’s forever out of power. And Raleigh, the guilty remnant of the last regime’s gone beneath the empire. And whoever her protectors are should be satisfied seeing her living. 

And she is going to live. And Raleigh’s going to live. And they will see each other again. 

“You’ve the strangest ways of voicing perfectly proper convictions,” Vipsania says. “There’s a sense of you’ve very odd notions beneath.”

“You are right, my friend,” Mako forces a smile. “I’m going to go home.” On the road, out of the hearing and sight of Rome, there will be a sort of freedom. And homeward bound, there are her allies. “May fortune smile on me.” 

-=-=


End file.
